Preview: Slow August – Beach Painting

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A warm summer day, an open beach and enough time to take your time. Here’s an alternate way to paint your boat on a beach.

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21 Responses So Far to “Slow August – Beach Painting

  • Bruce Ringrose says:

    Careening the hull for maintenance, a practice as old as boats that sail.

  • J.D. Bondy says:

    Great idea! Now I just need to find myself a beach here in the Dallas area.

  • Donna Dozier says:

    I used to do much the same thing with my twin-keel junk in SC. Can’t count how many well-meaning sailors offered to pull me off the sandbar, thinking we were stranded there. Sweet memories.

  • Jim Harris says:

    As sailors who appreciate the environment on which we sail, times have changed. We now recognize the impact of paint removal and application directly over the estuary tidelands. It may still be acceptable if a tarp was laid down, but larger boats requiring work over water in order to be ready before the return of the next tide are no longer acceptable or legal in most areas. Let us set the example to protect the environment we love.

  • Bryan and Brenda Harris says:

    Would probably masked the boot line to make it neater though. Still very nice to watch.

  • David Spader says:

    I used to do this with my 1966 Pearson 24 on my Family’s beach on Mamaroneck Harbor. There was nothing slow about it! I’d pick just the right weekend tides in May or June and pull the boat up in the dawn of Sat morning. Scrub one side as the tide went out; wax the topsides as the bottom dried; tape off the boot, then paint and let dry as the tide came up. Pull the boat off in the evening then repeat the process on Sunday morning. Avoid boat yards at all cost!
    The kids were little then and life was sooo good!!

    • Doug Day says:

      My boat, VALENCIA, was built at Derecktor’s in Mamaroneck in 1958. I was 7 years old and the only boat I knew was a rented dinghy to fish from. ($2, just row; $5, with outboard). A couple years ago I dropped in to visit Derecktor’s yard and was happy to see them in operation, howbeit, not building wooden boats. When I first bought the boat about 15 years ago and was first racing in the ERR, my pal on BURMA, Mike, hollered over, “Nice boat! Who designed her?” To which I proudly replied, “Olin Stephens himself.” To which Mike raised an important index finger and went below. Up came Olin himself in his 100th year. He was being fetted everywhere he went. He looked at the boat and gave me a wave and a nod. I imagined he said, “Yer doin’ an aces’ job. She looks great.” Credit deserved by Craig and his wife, for the previous 15 years.

      • David and Margaret Tew

        David and Margaret Tew says:

        I remember seeing Valencia in California in the mid-70s, then again in Rockport (Maine) harbor back in NE where she should be ;) recently. I have a guess that her lines were drawn by Francis Kinney under Olin’s supervision

  • Laszlo Morocz says:

    Well, boaties may watch paint dry, but art historians watch dried paint.

    So, what makes it possible to immerse incompletely dried paint and not have it peel off?

  • Tom McFarling says:

    Is this boat the Caledonia yawl built by Geoff of 2 Daughters? I loved that 42 part series. I’ve since seen the boat in other OCH videos. If this is she, what’s her name? I dream of her often.

  • Logan Weiler III says:

    Tremendously helpful advice, beautifully shared. It needs to be said aloud, because it seems counter intuitive: Start off slow, then ease up. It’s my new slogan, thank you!

    • Joseph Wl Haley III says:

      We in ‘The South’ have been saying it for ever !!

  • Dave Dickmeyer says:

    Watching men working and paint drying has never been so much fun or more beautiful! How did you ever manage to order that perfect sunset?

  • Walter Allan says:

    I never would have thought of this… Brilliant. My melonseed would like it.

    • Craig Adams says:

      Why, that looks a lot like Puget Sound.

      We have lots of those here.

  • Dustin Higdon says:

    Never has watching paint dry been more mesmerizing.

  • John Wujack says:

    An altogether different perspective on “watching paint dry.” Thanks.

    • William McCullom says:

      I can remember years ago, when lobster boats were considerably smaller and traps were dropped in waters close to home, at a full moon high tide, boats were driven up the beach propped up with poles and completely painted from gunwale to keel and pulled off at the next high tide. A far simpler time……..

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