It takes how long to paint a 28' boot stripe?

Repainting LIQUIDITY's boot stripe should have taken an hour or so but that wouldn't have been doing it well. The better experience went something like this...

I had already waxed the hull, over the course of several days. Not full days, of course, but a number of shorter sessions spread out over a week or more. Compounding one day, waxing one side, waxing the other side, waxing the transom. As a diversion from waxing, I'd sand and scrape the boot stripe, maybe five minutes at a time. It's like a coffee break or sorts and by the time the hull was compounded and waxed, the boot stripe was almost ready for its new coat of red paint.

Yesterday was not only opening day for the Red Sox. It was also LIQUIDITY's "Official Paint the Boot Stripe Day." Not a day, exactly, as I might have called it "Paint the Boot Stripe Hour." How long could it take, anyway, to mask a 28' stripe, wipe the old paint (already well sanded, remember) with acetone and apply a coat of red paint? An hour? No way.

Naturally, I arrived at the marina late for lunch, so I stopped into the new Marina Bay Marketplace. Ordering an eggplant sub took about a minute. Chatting with Larry added about half an hour. Driving to the yard and eating the sub added just another five minutes.

Having consumed not only the sub but more than half my allotted boot stripe time, I got to work with the masking tape. I don't remember if I masked the top of the stripe first or the bottom. I do know that right about where I had taped much of the starboard side, I was distracted by CJ.

I hadn't met CJ before, of course. He drove into the yard and stopped not quite across from me. I waved, he waved, his dog wagged its tail, his girlfriend waved.

Their story is that they're the new owners of a 1979 Pearson 28 that will be spending the season at Marina Bay. We'll almost be neighbors. Protocol being what it is, they invited me to climb the ladder to board their vessel. Later (I didn't note the elapsed time, exactly), I of course invited them to visit LIQUIDITY.

Socializing over, I finished taping the starboard side, taped the port side, painted the new boot stripe and removed the tape. Total elapsed time I would guess to be about 3 1/2 hours. Total time spent on the boot stripe (excluding the earlier prep time) I would guess to be about 45 minutes. Add to that about half an hour stimulating Larry's economy (which two Presidents in a row have said is a good thing). The rest of the time I chatted about the Boston Harbor islands, overnights to Scituate and cruising to P-town. I'd call that a productive afternoon.