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Anyone here have a Boat Repainted in Fiji, how did that go for you?


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So to follow up on how this all turned out. We have decided to do the paint work here in the first world paint realm of New Zealand. The best contractors in Fiji were painting in tarped or heat shrunk tents that had earthen bottoms held 30-80 cm off the ground which could  readily have admitted sand and sanding dust on an afternoon breeze. We also found that only two of the half dozen contractors there were capable of even writing back and then there was only one that followed thru but then never sent the estimate. All in all... not the sort of experience we were seeking for our trimaran. Maybe if we were already there we could have gotten a more responsive experience to our request for an estimate. If we didn't mind the risk of a bit of sand or insects buffed into the paint... that might have helped too. Certainly/likely 1/2 the cost of the job here and if we had a boat that we were not so maniacal about... it would have been a good place for the work. But we wanted a better job than we 'risked' getting.... more like some certainty. Our last paint job is still good after 21 years and the boat is very special to us.... so New Zealand it is!

Thank-you everyone that wrote... you are a great bunch... I followed up on every single lead you sent me and ran it to ground (truly)

We wound up with a quote that was allot more aggressive and affordable for us thanks to all of you!

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Things are progressing at Norsand.

We hauled the boat about two months ago and Melanie and I spent two weeks pulling all the deck and skin fittings, then stripped the mast and boom in another two days. The yard labor took another two weeks doing some fiberglass work and the painters have been at things for 4-5 weeks. 

Only issue so far...

We warned the painters that the mast used  an Automotive paint system. This paint was still in very good condition and we we are only repainting to get rid of the crazy metallic green color on our spars. They did a wet rag with solvent test on the finish coat,,,, However allot of the automotive color coat was sanded thru exposing the primer and when they sprayed the 2-part Epoxy undercoat/primer.... It softened and lifted the original primer. Norsand  now needs  to  take everything back to bare aluminum by sand blasting and disk sanding. The original paint is no longer adhering because of the reaction to the 2-pack primer.  I asked them if they would give us any 'considration' charging us for the failed paint job's labor and materials plus the added labor, and am waiting to hear back on this.

Other than this 'hick-up' (two weeks of labor for one man) .  We cant imagine a better kinder  or more consientious yard, we are impressed with them.

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Nov 26 Update, 

Norsand has been outstanding. The painters have been working on Saturdays to complete the project and make up for time lost to unexpected repairs at the start. I can't say enough positive things about Aaron who is leading the paint job. We hope to have the boat repainted early-mid December and the mast and boom afterwards. Hopefully we can start putting all the hardware back on. Melanie and I have spent the last few weeks passivating the stainless and re-polishing all the 316 SS. We think that if it took two weeks to remove that we can get everything back on in three weeks and be back in the water in 4-5 weeks post painting. That's just Melanie and I doing the work and we may get some yard help with this to speed the process up.

I any event, I've got nothing but good things to say about Norsand and we are about 65% of the way to completion. Every marine job has unexpected turns and Norsand has handled them well. Pictures are first coat of epoxy primer

Nov25th 2.jpg

Nov 25th 1.jpg

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An update... so five months later we are now re-attaching the deck hardware. Things are extremely slow even though we work on it 5-1/2 to six days a week and have a full time  Norsand lead carpenter working along side us... Many hick-ups and slow downs. The most recent (all-he-it minor) is the electric winch (Harken 40.2 installed in 2016) the poor fellow has spent almost all of 3-1/2 days re-installing it and just this Saturday (Feb 12th) he had to pull it for the third or forth time since he started. It will be four man-days to install this winch before we are done. This time to grind the starboard base to cant the winch outboard to get it clear the underdeck fasteners on the new Karver 4-speed winch next door. It's been difficulties like this for two months running and the bills do pile up.

We are at a bit of a low ebb at the moment with more recent and major pileup mistakes and issues that will hold us here for at least another month. 

 

M at Work.jpg

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