Day one

Today was the first day I worked on the boat. I wanted sand the keel and get a better sense of the crack between the keel/hull joint. The good news is that the crack appears to be more cosmetic than anything. I talked the the owner of the boat yard about it and he agreed. Also, I was pleasantly surprised how fast the the old bottom paint came off. I used a small bosch random orbital sander with 60 grit paper. As you can see from the pictures there were two layers of blue paint before I hit the lead (grey). I think as long as i remove the dark blue antifouling completely I shouldn't have to completely sand off the light blue to the lead. I tried to be careful about getting into the gel coat on the stub keel section of the hull, but I had to in some places where the gel coat was chipped or cracked. I am a little confused with the trailing edge of the keel because it appears to be be fiberglass.

Thanks to some keen observations from a Skeddadle forum member I was mad aware of the fact that the combing on the cockpit had been modified. It was extended all the way to the transom. Neither one of of could see a logical reason for this modification but when I climbed up to check it out today the situation got even stranger. Apparently someone modified the port side combing but left the starboard side stock. I felt like I was looking a a psychological test picture. "What is missing from the Photo?" So, anyway I plan on removing the port side mod when I begin working on the deck. The mod area was the only place on the boat that showed signs of blistering (go figure). So below are some pictures of the keel partially sanded and a new side shot of the boat. If anyone has anymore suggestions I would love to hear them. Thanks