Use it or Loose It

There are days when I just can’t find the motivation to keep working. I look up at the hull and feel totally overwhelmed and hopeless.

“It’s never ending…” I think aloud. But then I look left, and see, Ives, my hero of a neighbor who has worked relentlessly from dawn to dusk for 2 weeks straight, grinding and painting and detailing his hull with a smile on his face all the while. He’s a Frenchman in his 25th year of cruising a boat he built himself to sail around the world. I take a deep breath, look back at Swell, and try to muster the strength to keep going. But a scaffolding shortage around the yard has left me scaffoldless again, as it seemed there’s a ‘use it or loose it’ policy that comes into effect when I slip away to catch a few waves in the afternoons. So not only must I find the motivation to keep working, I first have to wander the yard and drag back anything sufficiently sturdy to stand on.

Finally Swell’s many blisters were sufficiently filled, fared, and sanded smooth and the gouged waterline, too, looked and felt sufficiently level.

“What do I do now?” I asked my faithful advisor, Cesar, after lunch one day.

“The waterline and each patch will need to be sealed with 6 coats of regular epoxy resin,” he replied.

I almost fainted at his words. I thought I would have to sand between each coat and just the thought of sanding all of that area six more times was enough to weaken my knees.

“But you can apply them wet-on-wet, in one day.” He finished.

It was still be a big job, but these words eliminated 5 of the sanding rounds.