sometimes you just call it..

I'm often plagued by the edges of the parameters I chose to work within. Life is a series of envelopes, and while you are wriggling within one, the next one beckons.

Yesterday I 'called it' on the outside hull paint. All I can see is surface imperfections, irregularities and flaws, and I know that given another four or five days of rubbing and re-surfacing I could achieve a really good surface, but I value my time and the rest of my life too much. So it isn't perfect, but it was never going to be. I loath perfection as a concept, and I have always struggled to explain that to people. It probably has something to do with a bigger picture- that no individual job deserves to be fully nailed because there are always things to consider beyond it...so you pick your line and you draw it.

I know from the last boat that this paint will hold up well, and that nature will take part in making the boat look comfortable and used, and I want to be relaxed in using it. It's almost like any extra time would be gratuitous and self-indulgent, once the line is identified.

The paint is Norglas marine enamel, made in Australia. It becomes tough as boots as it hardens. It was applied with a foam roller, the only worries being the bubbles that form- they need to be re-rolled very quickly without any pressure at all to remove them- and where possible, only working from one wet edge, to feather each new application of paint into the last.

It takes concentration and focus, but that is all. I like to rub each coat back, first looking for surface bumps with 180 grit and a long sanding block, then later with 220 grit on a foam block, looking for surface texture. So, I guess there were six or seven coats, but only the top three cover everything.