1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Bottom Paint

I painted the bottom way back in 2009, when we first splashed the boat and made the trip from Southern Maryland to Deale, where the Roamer’s been ever since. The boat was only in the water for a month or so, so the bottom paint is structurally in good shape. But a month of exposure to southern Potomac water and more than a decade on land has made the Pettit Vivid red bottom paint not very vivid anymore. So in preparation for launching in the relatively near future, with assistance from the Boatamalan painter, we sanded the bottom and put on a few more coats.

6″ 80 grit Mirka Abranet HD sandpaper makes quick, clean work of bottom sanding

With vacuums connected to the sanders, the net (rather than paper) backing of Mirka Abranet does a great job of keeping the dust under control. We still used full-face respirators and Tyvek suits and were done in a short day. There was practically no sanding residue on the ground.

After the new shaft tubes were welded to the V-struts, I primed but never painted them

Chine looks good

I decided to put bottom paint on the exhaust outlets

The Boatamalan says Awlgrip never lasts at the exhaust outlets or thru-hulls that see a lot of water (e.g. air conditioner raw water outlets). So we’re just going to coat them with bottom paint, which he says holds up just fine.

In the picture above, you can see a vertical line a few feet behind the exhaust outlet.

The Boatamalan found another loooong crack in the Interlux filler

Better to find and fix the crack now than to have water get up under the filler after the boat’s splashed. The painter took a die grinder to it and removed all of the obviously cracked and suspect material. Neither of us can figure out why this crack happened. It’s not in a high stress area. There’s no weld in the hull here. But the crack definitely originated in the Interlux filler applied by a previous and very expensive “marine craftsman.” It’s a mystery.

Like I said…it was a long crack

First coat of Vivid gets rolled on

Next day, we rolled on the 2nd coat

3rd day, third coat from the chine up

Five gallon cans later, there’s a half-gallon left

Main engine raw water intakes need to get done

Ideally, I would have had those standpipes welded in by the time we started bottom painting. But I was having problems with some TIG torch parts I bought. Barrier-coating this area and spot bottom painting once the welding is done won’t be a problem.

Next, I moved the stands one-by-one and applied two coats where they used to be

Crack repair is coming along. We used AwlFair here

I removed the 1/4-20 bolts I put in the shaft tubes to keep the Bar Rust 235 barrier coat epoxy out

And replaced them with proper set screws, installed with Tef-Gel

The set screws seat against a slight dimple I drilled in the cutlass bearing backing material, which mechanically holds the bearing in place. They’re all epoxied in, so I doubt they’d move with or without the screws. But every boat I’ve owned has had them, so I’m doing them here as well.

Done

Before we could paint the transom, I had to eliminate the scaffolding behind it.

Dismantling the scaffolding feels like serious progress toward splashing the boat

I never, ever want to have to build scaffolding again

Steps reconfigured…back to bottom painting

I don’t like having the bottom paint to the top of the stainless swim platform supports

I should have stripped that off before I installed the swim platform. But it’s not too late!

That’s better

I like it!

Done

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Main Engine Raw Water Intakes