Boot top painting

[grumpydog]

I am posting this on behalf of a letter we received at the office: do you think you can help?

I am currently working on my Harrison Butler Z4 Chiquita. She has a straight boot-top which I want repainted as a swept boot-top reflecting to some extent the sheer of the deck; any ideas?
Also, what is the best way to clean bronze, and do you think making patterns to cover fittings and protect brightwork is a good idea?
Peter Harrison

 

[tillergirl]

I'm not sure what the questioner is asking about the boot top. If he/she wants to follow the sheer, well do it. A bit of measuring should suffice. I think it will look pretty odd - which is probably why you don't see many doing that. Also usually the boot top is anti-foul paint. If it follows the sheer, a fair chunk of it will be out of the water and the colour will not remain stable. So, the extra bit of boot-top above the waterline would have to be a matching enamel/gloss finish. Which all seems a lot of extra work - for what I think would look a bit odd.

As for cleaning bronze in a coastal environment - I don't bother. Too much polishing and the patina is quite nice anyway. Patterns to cover fittings - don't understand. Protect brightwork - good idea. Anything that stops the sun (UV), salt, rain, sea, human beings getting at it is a good idea. But then you can't see it.

All in all, not very helpful really! Perhaps we ought to swop user names?

 

[Lakesailor]

Surely the purpose of the boot top is to echo the waterline. I put mine on in black gloss 4" above the waterline to disguise the slime that creeps up the topsides on a lake mooring.

 

[Mirelle]

How do I post a picture?

Our boot top follows the sheer; always has.

Yes, covers for, at the least, mainsail, cockpit and forehatch are important.

 

[dur]

I think my boottop is wider at the ends, particularly aft where the bilge turns. Otherwise from a distance it would appear as if it were thinner which would be strange. I think they normally follow the waterline. That's the point of them isn't it? You sometimes see one which has gone an inch or two too far up. Always reminds me of old Ford Cortina's where the underseal got higher and higher each year in an attempt to hide the spreading rust!

 

[stephenh]

Boot tops either follow the waterline or the sheer.
Almost, but not quite.
If you scribe a boot top to follow the sheer or the waterline exactly then when viewed the eye plays a trick and it appears to sag at either end.
Therefore a skilled yacht painter ( like the chap who taught me 40 or more years ago ) will give the boot top line an extra 'lift' to either end and further by increasing this lift to the forrard end , very slightly, the yacht acquires a 'jaunty' look.
You might not believe this ( as I didn't .... I was very green & I thought my leg was being pulled....) but it's true.
And how to do it ? with very long battens and help from people with an artistic eye.
You might not believe this either :
When you have tacked your battens up, your eyes play futher tricks and the line looks 'uncomfortable' ( my mentors word) and so what you do is turn round, bend over and look at the boat through your legs...
By viewing the curved line upside down your usual distorting reference points of horizon, water lines, ground level etc. are upset to the degree that you can view your curve as it is and adjust it further or whatever. It takes some time.
No its not April 1st !!!! try it out..
Good luck
Stephen

 

[rich]

I will give that a go next march, But I will probably Pass out, n end up face in the MUD /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[Lakesailor]

I set up the whole bit, with level trestles at either end and the boat levelled off on the trailer. Then started the procedure of a line from one trestle to the other moving the fixing points and glancing off the hull at one point. Try to make it more than one and the line dips with the sheer. Took me ages.
Then someone posted that they'd used a laser level from a beam and just swung it about the horizontal in steps marking the point it touched the hull at each turn.
Brilliant. Takes into account the sheer so the boot top disappears under the stern but is narrow at the most vertical point. With a perfect top edge.
They're only about £30.