Once I got it all masked up and ready to go, it was time to start applying the dark blue pearl base.



Remember the problem I had with the paint lifting on the transom??? Yup, did it again... This time it was the port bow... from the bow itself, back about a quarter to third of the overall hull length. Now I was just determined to get the job done... I will yell and swear about the WM sales person that promised me that the darned primer would work for my purposes. Next time I will just go up to
Auto-Industrial Paint Co. or one of the other body and paint suppliers in town and follow my initial thoughts of just using a good epoxy primer to seal the darned thing up prior to painting. Anyway, another hour and a half lost to wet sanding all the lifting out (back to the gel coat yet again), cleaning, tacking, and very light coats of base to keep it from massively re-lifting. This stuff is really reactive if one isn't really, really careful. Well, it didn't lift nearly as bad as before, but it came back... screw it, I will just blend it out to try and camouflage it a bit, I had to drop coat the blue anyway to get the pearls to stand up right, so that will help hide it, and what the heck... Once it is on the water, no one will ever notice... I never wanted it perfect... None of all this frustration will make a darned bit of difference once I stripe it on the dock the first time... >

Anyway...

This is actually a 2005 Cadillac color. The white, BTW was the base for a three step white pearl, which is also a very popular Cadillac color. I didn't want to go with the pearl this time, because I wanted to maintain that really clean aesthetic, and believe it or not, the white pearl, next to the blue pearl, kind of dirties it all up; at least it doesn't scream "Clean!". I learned this after painting my last boat. The difference there, however, is that was primarily white pearl with blue and blue graphics, and was on a West Coast hot boat. Here I was going for that pure sailboat look that never ceases to make me take a second look.

Here are a couple of looks at the stripes after I got the whole thing unmasked.







Even without the clear, this classic scheme really made me feel a lot better about the frustrations. The blems really aren't all that bad. Could be, and has in the past, been a hell of a lot worse than this.

Look how clean the waterline came out on these... Even I had to smile on that. Freehand striping like this is a heck of a challenge, because if you don't do it right the stripe won't flow smooth (they become really wavy and peaked... not flowing), an the 1/4 inch stripes wont appear uniform... Got lucky today. This made up for all the BS with the primer.