After her first 150Km road trip, Chloe landed in Cherbourg in October 2018. She's now ready for painting, fitting and the rigging phase of her build. We think of this phase as Chloe's second half of her construction....
November 2018 : Painting areas
The next job for Chloe is Painting. She's firstly polished and prepped, ready for a multitude of coats of high quality paint on her top sides. But first, we should highlight our thinking for the techniques involved related to all of Chloe's various types of exposed surfaces:-
Chloe has several types of surfaces and related considerations & specs, as follows:
Top Side Decks. Walkable surfaces, exposed to rain, sea water and sun.
Hull Sides. She'll take bumps bashes and be exposed to a lot of sea water and sun. And will determine the over all appearance of her, from a distance. She needs a good looking hull to be a hot looking Cat!
Coach Roof Chloe's lid is FPR to both save weight, adding stability and to provide a better looking profile than squarer cornered Aluminum can offer.
Top & Cockpit Metal and Rails. These are hard working areas & likely to get bashed and kicked a bit. We need a hard high quality solution but with an easy to touch-up system that looks clean.
Top Side Decks
Two choices are on the table for Chloe's Decks. Either bare paint, with anti-slip particulate embedded into the paint, or, Decking planks. Planked Decking looks great and provides a lot of extra heat insulation to both to the inside of the boat and to any bare feet on an Aluminum deck. Decking can be made from either Teak (wood) or PVC. High Density X-linked PVC will last for decades, is easy to clean and does not involve cutting down Teak trees. It's also recyclable. Chloe's decks will be left as bare, self anodizing Aluminum and then covered with planks of Deck-King PVC decking. She should look great as a result.
Before the painting step, we'll mask off these deck areas, leaving bare Aluminum - ready for subsequent decking..
Hull Sides
Being an Aluminum boat there is a question as to how to Finnish the Hull sides. There has existed a long standing debate, within the boat building community, as how to paint and even, whether to paint, an Aluminum hull. Paint can blister and allow in pockets of sea water in, that can lead to a messy looking painted surface, down the road.
Many boats, including Garcia's, to date, have opted for an Aluminum, Clear lacquer Finnish. It leaves the boat looking 'Aluminum' but will most likely suffer, in years to come - from fading and blistering. During the years ahead Lacquer will have to be removed and the boat repainted. Unlike plastic boats however, the aluminum integrity is not compromised.
As Aluminum is an active metal that will anodize when exposed to oxygen, many people opt to simply leave the bare Aluminum exposed - allowing the protective anodized layer to do it's job. It's a good approach. but a dull silver boat can look ... well, a little 'dull and silver'.
Generally though, this is a good idea and is why we see so many smaller aluminum boats 'bare'...
Painting Aluminum has to be done very well. Or not at all. Many Aluminum cars, like Aston Martins or Teslas have great looking paint jobs - adopting high tech approaches and ovens - but it does require a set of special techniques if it's ever chipped, and will then not look pretty if exposed to Marine conditions.
New technology. We will choose to take a different approach for Chloe. We wanted to be able to simply repair any messed up paintwork, down the road. And we want Chloe to look great. And we really didn't like the idea of an Aluminum hull that has gradually degraded into a dull looking, blotchy, anodized finish over the years. So how can we do this....? Is this even a reasonable expectation?
We chose to wrap her hull sides in a colored plastic film. Think heavy duty, colored cling film that sticks when pressure is applied. This is a new technology that will leave Chloe looking great for about 7 to 10 years. It's also easy to replace, repair and patch when needed; far easier than paint touchups. And, after 7 years or so, the wrap can be removed and recycled and a new 'skin' installed. Wrapping is also installed at a significantly lower cost than painting and can be applied to bare, clean, smooth aluminum. As a result, Chloe can be a beautiful color. And even a new color each decade...for if vanity prevails. Given all these advantages, we expect more boat hulls to be wrapped instead of painted in the future.... If you'd like to know more about this new, high tech product; you'll find links by googling: "3M Vinyl Wrap' or "Avery Dennison Warp" as two example mainstream vendors.
Coach Roof
Chloe's Coach roof is a smaller section of rather conventional FRP. As a molded component of foam cored FRP, we'll treat this section as any production sailing boat. Gelcoat and no paint. Nothing special or new here, we'll just make sure to not drill any holes in it.
Top Side Cockpit Metal and Rails
Chloes metal top-side surfaces & cockpit area will be primed and painted using best practice, multi-stage Aluminum painting techniques. If chipped, down the road, we'll just sand, and touch up any spots, dents and dings. This will only apply to small, isolated areas and will be considered a standard maintenance job. All white for these areas.
Early November 2018: Painting Prep.
First job is to touch up grind, sand finish, sand and smooth all of Chloe's areas ready to receive her top side and cockpit paint layers. Also her transom and bow sprit. Any area that is not going to be decked or vinyl wrapped will be painted or lacquered....
Mid November 2018 - Painting Layers Started
Now Chloe's exposed metal, working areas are painted with multiple coats of primer and epoxy paint. She's kept in a nice warm conditioned space to let her paint dry optimally.
End of November 2018 - Painting Layers Completed
Chloe's top side painted layers are being finalized. A perfect gloss shiny Finnish after a multitude of layers. if you want a really good paint job, you need to use multiple layers and let each layer dry optimally.
