I set myself a timeline of June to have the first full coat of highbuild on the boat (the extra thick stuff, International Microsurfacer). I am almost on sched. Inserted are various pics in no particular order.

I have bogged and sanded just about the entire boat now. Then back filled nicks and marks and sanded those. The decks included, even though they will be covered in non slip.

I have just a few sections on the rear steps to go, and most of the cockpit. I have bogged some of the cockpit but still have the seat fronts to do, and of course sand it all. The sanding shows up the high spots where the bog is completely removed. I still have a little more work to do around the hatch pads but the deck hatch edges are pretty good now.

I have started the cockpit. Bogged all of the vertical surfaces except for a small area behind the steering wheel that will be covered by the dashboard once I build it. Oh yeah, did I mention I still have to build the console? Its the last thing left I need to build for the exterior. I have glassed down the last rear steps (at the davit base) and the winch pads, I am in the process of adding the pads for the clutches and the turn blocks (I also still have one more ply pad to add for a single clutch for each sheet in front of the winches but I dont have them yet so wont attach them until I have the clutches).

And I also have a fair bit (no pun intended, there is nothing funny about fairing) of fiddly cove and corner sanding to do. Anywhere that wont get non slip will remain glossy such as around the edges of hatches and windows, along coved edges and corners, etc. so it needs to be as good as I can get it before the highbuild goes on.

Once all of these fiddly little jobs are done, me, Terry and Ray (he helped Terry for a lot of his build) are going to get rollers and make the boat one single color, in this case I think its a grey color, for the first time. Being one color will help to show how close to fair we are. Of course, if we are miles out, then the sanding will go through the highbuild and the boat will be multi colored again. Lets hope it stays grey. Then once the microsurfacer is sufficiently fair, it will be a coat of the white sealing highbuild, I use Jotun penguard HB, and a final sand before topcoat.

Oh and just before we topcoat we go and ruin the fair surface by glassing in stanchions and daggerboard sheaves which if attached now would get in the way of fairing, but when they do go on the faired surface is ground away, the parts glassed in, then the area re-faired. Its a crime really. But its the best way I am reliably told. But that is a while off yet and I cant wait to get to that stage.

In the meantime, hopefully my next post will include pics of the boat all one color. Not sure yet if I will paint the roof in microsurfacer, its already faired pretty well after 3 coats of white highbuild. And I am not sure yet how far the microsurfacer I have will stretch, but if I have enough I may just paint the entire boat. Same applies under the bridgedeck, again if I have spare I may go further than a meter under at each end.