Oct. 5th - 6th, 2002
Bugs. 
I hate bugs and I hate the wind and trees when I'm putting on a final coat of epoxy. It never fails...I rinse and wipe the hull down, sweep and then hose down the driveway, ground and surrounding plants. The air is still and there are no bugs. But as soon as I mix up the first batch of epoxy, the wind starts blowing and every gnat within a twelve block radius decides to commit suicide on my beautiful Jumbo. Even with all this careful prep work I end up with creepin crud forever lodged in my fresh epoxy. A thousand years from now, scientists will discover my lovely Jumbo and find to their amazement that there are thousands of now extinct gnats and the leaves of very rare, un-genetically modified trees embedded in the layers of fiberglass and epoxy. Maybe they'll name a gnat after me or the boat. Stevus-gnaticus. Yeah, has a ring to it.
Other than a tiny bit of touch up on a spot or two of the spray rails, they're finished.
I like the way the graphite impregnated epoxy looks on the spray rails. Since they're a prominent feature on the Jumbo hull and a design element that's shared with the Tolman Standard and Widebody I believe they should be emphasized. It also took a lot energy and coaxing to get those things made and installed. So they deserve being up front and center in their attention. They look and are constructed to be rugged. I don't think they'll come off on their own and I'd venture to say that a group of strong folks could pick the Jumbo up by it's sprayrails. Of course they're gonna come in handy by knocking down that cold Pacific Ocean spray.
After I finished coating the sprayrails, I taped the pseudo water line and the edges of the spray rails in preparation for giving the sides and the transom two final coats of unthickened epoxy. I've sanded and scraped to a point of silliness. And I really don't think things 
look any better, thanks to the bugs, leaves and brush hairs you find here and there. An occasional bit of epoxy drool somehow escaped my computer weary eyes and yeah I didn't always taper a fiberglass seam as neatly as a Yacht builder might have. But this is a fishing boat, it already has a heap of character.
All that remains for the outside of the hull is primer and paint. It's ready to roll!