Happy 4th of July There have been lots of changes at WhiteCap Video since my last post.  Summer is in full swing, Kincora is in the water, new video hosting site, travel to lakes of northern MN for a shoot, up in the helicopter three times for shoots, Annapolis for shoot, watch the Cup Boats race on the bay, and of course enjoying summer in paradise. We really do live in paradise.  I have traveled the world and am happy to say Jamestown is the preferred place for us to live.  The island is in its crazy summer mode but…

This past week I went to San Francisco to meet the team of California Condor in preparation for the Pacific Cup in July, and put in a few days working on the boat.  The bonus was to race in the Spinnaker Cup Friday 25 May.  As my sailing friends will know ocean racing had been shut down on the West Coast since the tragic deaths in two separate ocean races this spring.  The Spinnaker Cup (San Francisco to Monterey) was the first race where racing has resumed. The boat is box rule Class 40 named California Condor, designed by Jim…

It is nice to be finished with composite work and working on the systems.  Deck hardware is close to complete and will be in the next blog post.  We have a few custom items that will greatly improve the shorthanded sailing. This post is about the water ballast plumbing.  KISS is the way I like to keep things on board and the water ballast plumbing is nice and simple.  There are 2” hose running from the tanks to the three separate manifolds that can be removed for adjustment or repair.  The pump is Rule 3800 GPH, which will fill the…

The only job I have not tackled with my teammate Jim Anderson is the bottom.  Why do the bottom when you are in one of the best bottom shops in the country.  So Waterline Systems took on the bottom. First the bottom was stripped down to the outer skin since the original bond coat was peeling in a lot of spots.  This also allowed us to view the outer skin/core and do a full inspection.  Luckily my original survey was accurate and the laminate and core are in excellent condition. Then 8 coats of Interprotect 2000 were applied.  This is…

Kincora Kiwi Grip non-skid is completed.  To prep the deck took a day of sanding.  I used my Fein DA sander with 80 grit hooked up to a vacuum to keep the job clean.  With the vacuum I could see the deck surface, which was important since there was very little paint on the deck. It took a few hours to tape off the deck, which was made easier by having the hardware stripped.  As you can see the old sea hood is history and the new more efficient sleeker hood improves the boats looks, and allows access to all…

With the smooth white on deck completed and the interior ready for systems it is time to start the bottom.  Then we will do the Kiwi Grip non-skid, install some hardware and be out the door and install all the systems, yeeha. For our bottom job, Waterline Systems, LLC has a bottom crew that works their butts off and produce some of the best race bottoms in the business. At first I was thinking it would be a sand, spray, and wet sand to a glass finish.  But once we inspected it closely we could see there were areas that…

Below is painted white and the sole with Kiwi Grip non-skid.  We are very pleased with the results.  Once this was completed we taped off the interior and went to work on the deck. The new seahood is now installed and ready for non-skid.  Deck is prepped and first coat of smooth white has been painted.  This week we will do two more coats of white, then a major job painting the non-skid with grey Kiwi Grip which we think is a great product. For applying the Kiwi Grip we tried trowling on then working out the air with the…

Yeeha the painting below has begun. Aft lockers are painted, and inside the water ballast tanks.  Now there was a fun job climbing inside the ballast tanks prepping and painting.  The forward section can only be accessed through a 4” port but viewed from further aft.  So for painting I poured in the gel coat then reached in with 4 ½” brush and kept picking up more gel at the bottom and moved it around till everything felt smooth.  Went back and viewed the progress and looked for holidays and back at it.  With four tries each side the tanks…