A Little Paint......

   Well, Spring is finally sort of making an appearance.  The sun came out and temperatures finally creeped above the 40's.  Gee, it's almost May and the tulips haven't even bloomed yet!
  
   A couple days ago I finally pulled the tarp off the Pica and moved it over to the sawhorses/workbench.  There I realized I rather botched the "long winter's sleep department".

It wasn't really nice to look inside the boat and see this nice blush of mildew.  Curiously it didn't take on the floor or the bottom of the sides, on account of epoxy coatings there.

    Mildew, sure sign that I really didn't have the boat blocked off the ground well enough and moisture built up under the hull (upside down).  I will have to build higher bunks for next winter--as I suspect that this will happen whether the interior is painted or not.

    On the outside, more things pointing out that better storage is needed:

This is the view of the outside of the hull, and while the mildew is not as bad as the interior, there is still some checking and varnish failure.  Blue tarps just aren't that good.

  So... what to do?  Sadly, the mildew appeared the bloom under the varnish.  It also seemed to be the worst on the luan and somewhat on the plywood bulkheads.   Solid wood pieces were not affected, but that may be because there was either more varnish applied (varnish early and often--like voting).  It could also be that the plywood products did not present as tight a surface and so the varnish that was applied, just wasn't enough to fill the pores.   To note, the gunwales came through the winter in perfect condition.

  Not really sure what the mildew would do, or not do, but I wasn't too worried about the outside of the hull, as it was meant to be painted anyway.  To that end, I did some sanding the then painted it Rustoleum Topside Marine Paint.  Yeah, Rustoleum makes boat paint--with one caveat:  the paint is not meant to be submerged for long periods of time (over a week).  I don't think I'll have that problem, so I started by putting down a coat of primer.

   What a difference a coat of paint makes!   I didn't quite get it perfect (runs on one side) but those will sand out and I'm pretty confident I can make the finish coat look good.  Still not sure what to do with the interior as yet.   Much as I really want to get out onto the water, I really ought to get this done first.