Painting Pandora to dazzle.

I have written lately about the of choosing a color for Pandora’s new paint job and it has turned out to be quite the process.

Most owners and certainly builders, trying to keep it simple,  just say “paint it white” and it seems that even that can be complicated.   White isn’t always white.  Awlgrip has about 25 colors that can loosely be described as “white” and that doesn’t even get into the colors that stray into the greys and tans.

White is so pervasive among boats that the line of Island Packet cruising boats and their distinctive tan (Or is it biscuit?) off-white always stand out in a harbor.

So, here I am complicating things further painting Pandora grey.  My biggest concern has been that if I go too light there would not be enough contrast with the cabin and deck and she’s look like a marshmallow and if too dark she’d look like a micro-battle ship.   One comment on my blog suggested “Bob, just pick a color that’s the same as bird poop”.  Thanks Mary-Marie, that helps a lot.

The yard, Cooley Marine in Stratford CT, that’s handling the refit was recommended by one of the managers at the yard where I normally haul Pandora each year for work.    The owner, Andrew Cooley has been very helpful in assisting me with color selection and somehow took a photo of Pandora and overlaid various color options which I chronicled in nauseating detail, in case you missed it, in this post.  He has two facilities, one in Stratford CT at the Brewer’s yard and another in Stamford at the Hinkley yard.  I understand that Hinkley has a terrific paint shed but the yard fees were a bit too rich for my blood (There’s a reason that Hinkley describes their boats as having “million dollar paint jobs”) so we settled on the Stratford yard.  Cooley has done some big as well as little jobs and handles complex refits as well as straight up paint work.

Pandora’s job was a bit complicated because of a wooden rub rail that protects the hull.  Unfortunately, it was never properly prepared when the boat was built and therefore it has had a habit of peeling badly over the years.  Cooley has taken some special preparation steps that we hope will minimize the problem going forward but only time will tell.   This is me and Andrew checking out the “bad news” regarding the toe-rail before she was prepped for paint.  Notice that his smile is bigger than mine?  Just why is that, exactly?We settled on Alexseal paint, as I have mentioned in past posts as it’s easier to repair and with all the distance I cover with Pandora, things do go “bump in the night” so repairs are inevitable.

“So, Bob, Bob, what color are you going to paint Pandora.  You’ve been torturing us for weeks on this already.  JUST DECIDE!”

Ok, you win.  We chose “Light Grey”.   A color, and to paraphrase the fairy tale
The Princess and the Pea, that we hope isn’t too light or two dark.

This is what the mockup of Pandora is like with that color.  However, I expect that it will look a bit darker, or will it be lighter, when it’s all done?  Who knows.I visited her in the shop the other day after she was primed, a sort of, light grey.  Yep, looks a little like a micro-battle ship.  So, what will Light Grey really look like , really?  I have only the vaguest idea when you come right down to it.

Or, to put it another way, she may look a lot like this 18″ square piece of aluminium that the yard painted Light Grey.  That, of course, would be if she was 18″ long and happened to have the woods, red flowers and hummingbird feeders as a backdrop.   Confused?  Me too.  But wait.  When all is said and done, I expect that this whole “choose a color” exercise will be a bit like choosing perfume.  After the first 3 or 4, they all start to smell the same anyway so just pick one and be done with it.

One way or the other, it’s all about the execution and I am sure that she will look just smashing when she comes out of the shop.  No wait, smashing?, not the best choice of words.   No, I am sure that she will look beautiful in her new colors.

Before I break, here’s another idea.  How about drawing inspiration from the Navy in WWI when the British artist Norman Wilkinson, came up with the idea of painting ships with a mix of geometric patterns to make it more difficult for German U boats to get a good bearing and distance.   Besides, it’s a timely question as a nod to the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI this November, an artist, as reported in the NY Times, has painted the now retired NYC fireboat, the John J. Harvey in a modified “dazzle” paint job.   Actually, it’s a very interesting article.  Check it out here. Oh, never mind.  I’ll just stick with grey.  Whatever the color, I am sure that she will come out of the shed in a few weeks, ready to dazzle.