Hallo
Could I pick up on two things which have come up in this thread, about repair and maintenance?
Background - my Storm Petrel has no glass epoxy coating at all (it came in later than 2003-4), and the hull is 4mm ply. So I treat her as a bit of an eggshell, and to date have had no incidents of serious damage to repair. I am about to start a Trouper 12 kit build, and of course she will be proper epoxied ply. She has an 8 mm ply bottom, and otherwise 6 mm below the waterline (I think), so is an inherently tougher little boat
Point 1 - Claus, you mention the BR hull having no glass-hardened panels above the waterline. This surprised me - am I being very naive/ignorant here? Is this to save weight? build costs? both? I haven't got my kit yet (next week!!), but had intended to sheathe the whole hull. Would there be a problem with this (apart from an increase in weight)?
Point 2 - In the context of touching up, repainting etc, I am very UNimpressed with the abrasion resistance, or apparently complete lack of it, of normal one-pot marine paint. I used a very good brand, carefully applied - 6 coats of primer, 3 of undercoat, three of enamel - and in some ways it has lasted extremely well - gloss and colour retention, lack of peeling etc. However it takes almost no contact to mark it, and not much more to scrape it. I may err on the perfectionist side, but I spend a fair amount of time simply 'repairing' scrapes in the paint. (In contrast the Superdec paint on the deck and inside the boat is fantastically resilient: unfortunately it really only binds that well on 'naked' ply rather than epoxy.) I have therefore been giving serious thought to (and quite a bit of reading up on ) using two-pot paint for my second build. It's obviously tricky to apply, probably also for touch-up and repairs; but also very much more abrasion resistant. Does anyone have personal experience? (I'm half expecting a 'don't touch it with the proverbial barge pole' response, I'm not sure why!)
Other people's expertise/experience would be most welcome - thanks in anticipation.
(Storm Petrel) Cadenza