Refit Week 25 - Glossy Paint At Last !

The team here at Pro Yachting are doing a very good job .... despite myriad delays (all caused by us) they remain focussed on the main game, which is to put a high quality paint system on the outside of Crystal Blues.

It took five guys almost a full week clean and mask the deck before they applied the Grey deck paint - an incredibly detailed masking job, with every square inch of the deck either primed and cleaned (ready to paint) or covered with tape and garish pink (but effective) vinyl flooring. After the grey was sprayed they settled down to cleaning and masking over all of it again, for the application of the white non-skid surfaces (see the photos). The new non-skid paint is really grippy, quite a change from the ineffective surface we've lived with for ten years.

This week the deck was completed, and they'll now move onto the topsides of the hull (above the waterline), which are primed and waiting. Then they have the mast and boom, plus all the hatch covers and loose fittings to paint. However by the end of this week we should have access to the boat again, and will be able to start replacing all the deck fittings and fitting out the forward hold. Onwards & upwards ...

Bush Fire Commentary

People here in Phuket often ask us about the terrible bushfires that have ravaged our home state, and taken so many lives. For many it is difficult to comprehend how a fire disaster of this magnitude can occur. The Age newspaper (who provided the amazing little images at right) has an excellent site devoted to the fires - you can access it here, and we've now added two impressive files to our public storage site that say it all. Bushfire Images is a compact .pdf file containing a powerful collection of photographs. Written by an acknowledged fire expert, Anatomy Of A Firestorm is a fascinating and detailed news story on how seasonal climate, geography and localised weather conditions combined to set the disaster in train.