Wednesday, April 24th, 2012

Hi friends. Starting off the day, we were expecting rain if not when we woke up but for sure around the mid-morning time. Captain Drew told me to expect work at 0700 hours this morning and that he would call me if he was going to call off the day. At about 0615 hours, my phone rang and when I saw that my phone read "Incoming call: Drew Henderson", I nearly trampled my girlfriend to reach for the phone and hear those beautiful words of "don't come to work today". Well, Drew being the awesome boss that he is just wanted to remind me that work was still on. Disappointed is an understatement. He specifically said that he would only call to let me know that we were NOT to come into work. I reluctantly suited up for work, still a little peeved that my vision of sleeping in and an all-day couch marathon was switched back to 7-11 coffee, 5-hour energies, and arthritic hands by days end.

Now some of you might be asking "Richie. Why so grumpy about going to work?" Well, after Tuesday's primer coat application, the primer creates what is called "orange peel".The entire hull looks like a giant, white orange peel and to rid ourselves of this orange peel, what must one do to smooth it out and get prepped for the final gloss coat? If you guessed "more sanding" then yes, you are correct. From 0700 until 1630 hours on Wednesday, we had to re-sand the entire boat with 220-grit sand paper to smooth everything out. Oh, how could I forget? We did all of this under beautiful, sunny skies. That weatherman is not our friend at the moment. He was wrong about the Wednesday morning/afternoon rain but he was correct about the rainfall on Wednesday evening in San Diego.

So here it is, Thursday morning and work was called off not only because of the rain but also to relieve sore, aching muscles as the constant use of both vibrating and orbital sanders took it's toll on Drew, Jed, Mark, Tommie, Jamie and myself from yesterday and we were given the day off. Thanks, Drew.

In all seriousness, there is a silver lining to all of my complaining of long days and sore bodies. All of the hard work that we put into the boat doesn't go un-noticed when we take a look at the boat right before the first trip of the season. The boat will look stunning and it will be a pleasure to keep her maintained throughout the years. When we have to put on our sunglasses to even stare at the hull and when you see your reflection perfectly in the boat, it's sweet justice to put so much time and effort into a project and to have it come out looking so beautiful. We can't wait to see how everyone will react when they first lay eyes on the new and improved Polaris Supreme.

Anyhow, I had some time to type out a nice, long report on our day off today. Weather permitting, we'll be back at it tomorrow to finish some touch-up sanding as we get ready for the final application of the gloss coat which probably will be scheduled for either Friday or Monday. We'll chat with you tomorrow and let you know how our day went.

-Richie & Team Supreme-

P.S. Sorry about no pictures lately. There really hasn't been anything picture-worthy in the past couple of days and the pictures I would've shot, you've seen before: all of us with sanders in our hands, gloves on, respirator masks, safety glasses and looking like giant powdered donuts. I'll send some shots with the completion of the gloss coat.