Living on the "Hard"

Life on the “hard” is ….tiring, challenging, chilly, frustrating? Actually it is all of those things. Last Friday Miss Lauren Grace was lifted out of the water and set on the parking lot with blocks under her keel and jack stands supporting her hull.


Those with a good memory may recall that we were also sitting “on the hard” last November during Hurricane Ida, and you would be correct. We had our bottom painted last fall and this summer we discovered that the paint is failing so here we are again.

I am trying hard (no pun intended) not to complain about… climbing up a 8’ ladder every time I need to go to the bathroom (because our toilets require water from the river to flush properly); getting up early to be ready for the workers (who start at 0730) to start, scrubbing, sanding, painting (pick one) and then finding out that they have slotted several other jobs ahead of us and they won’t start on our boat until after lunch; getting up in the cold because our heaters need water to function and having to wait for an electric space heater to warm things up; having to be frugal with my use of water for dishwashing and hygiene because it drains out onto the ground under the boat and creates a mess. If all of this was not frustrating enough I am fairly well pissed that we paid for this job to be done just a year ago and now they are finding all sorts of reasons, some even partially valid, why it is not “their” fault that the paint failed.

Apparently our bottom has “blisters”, think of them as pimples on the surface of the fiberglass. This despite the fact that before we bought her someone had gone to the expense to apply an epoxy bottom finish. Now we learn that those jobs generally last from 5-7 years, so it appears ours is at the expiration date.

Now we have to decide if we want to spend several months with the boat hauled out of the water “drying out” or if we just want to put a band aid on the situation and deal with it later. So far we are leaning toward the band-aid approach.

On the bright side (if you look hard enough you can generally fine a tiny ray of sunshine somewhere) it is not raining and the sun heats the boat up nicely by noon and it is stays warm until a couple of hours after dark. Also the temperatures are forecast to warm throughout the week and the nights won’t be so cold in a couple of days.

Hopefully we will have the band-aid in place and be back in the water by next weekend. Meanwhile we had dinner tonight with friends Paul & Stacy who are sitting right next to us here “on the hard”.  I guess life isn't really all that bad.