Fairing as the next olympic sport

 I spent the past couple days sanding off all of the fairing putty stripes we discussed in the previous post.  All the rumors about fairing a boat are true - it is tiring and makes me feel like I'm going to pass out.  Of course most physical activity makes me feel this way, that's why I sail!  Actually, the sanding went fairly  quickly (pardon the pun), it just felt like it would take forever.  In this shot, you will see that we rotated the hull onto its side to make the process a little easier.  I highly recommend cradles with interchangeable forms, it really made life easy here.  You might also notice that I am standing on the strongback to get better leverage while sanding.  We thought a lot about either clearing out one side of the boat house, or removing the strongback, so we could put the hull at floor level.  But in the end I found this worked okay.  Most of the time I can comfortably stand on the floor and sand, but sometimes it was useful to get a little higher.  And so far I haven't slipped off or broken any important parts of me.

 Here is an excellent picture of me in mid stroke.  Notice the fine form, arms fully extended, eyes on the destination, balding spot in full view!  More importantly, notice that I am in full battle gear with respirator and 100% dust cartridges, tyvek suit, and gloves (with nitrile gloves underneath).  This activity makes a lot of dust, and I really don't want my lungs full of this epoxy/microballoon dust.  And 8 hours of sanding with a long board tends to tear up your hands, so the gloves are a necessity.  I am using 3M marine fairing boards (this one is the rigid version) and sand paper.  They are a little shorter than recommended at only 30".  But they worked quite well and I didn't have to spend any time building a board.

 After I finished sanding the entire surface, we removed the forms in the cradles and set the hull keel-side up so I could round over the keel.  Hopefully this will be the only time we ever see these hulls in this orientation!  It took about a day to sand the entire hull, which is less time than I expected.  I expect it will take a week for my arms, back, and shoulders to recover.  If you notice the piece of pvc pipe sitting on the keel, it is my reference for the radius of the keel.

Here is a close up view of the hull after sanding the stripes off.  It's hard to capture the fairness of the hull in a photo, so trust me when I state that this hull is pretty darn fair.  There are a few spots that are a little low, and the high spots were sanded flush.  The highest remaining stripes are only about 1/32", and most of the stripes are completely gone.  Although tiring and quite the workout, I found this fairing process very satisfying.  Not only did I get a great upper body cardio workout, the hull looks like it was built in a mold.

Next we will fill in the low areas with a thin veneer of fairing putty and sand again.  Assuming that takes care of the initial fairing, we will then move on to laminating the exterior.