Dorade was ready to sail this year, but most of this season’s Northeast regattas were either cancelled or postponed, and a wet spring shifted into the long, dry months of summer. In consultation with the team at Loughborough Marine Interests (LMI), Team Dorade decided that the double-planked hull should get wet another way.
Since Dorade already spends her winters in a tent, typically with two or three other large classic yachts, she has spent the summer inside the same tent. In July, the team decided that she needed a second tent and an irrigation system.
The tent is made of 4 mil plastic over temporary framing, and it encloses Dorade’s exterior. Water is delivered in hoses, which are fixed near the waterline with perforations like a garden “soaker” hose. The water is switched on by a timer for 15 minutes, every 10 hours, to keep the hull damp.
The tent was assembled by the team along with Ben Garcia of Diversified Finishes in Bristol who is better known as a painter. In fact, according to LMI’s Joe Loughborough, “Ben set the tent up not only as a humidifier but also as a painting enclosure; he’ll use it when we do a full bottom job on Dorade in the fall.”
As the weather turns cooler in late September, the plan is to strip the paint down to bare wood, sand and fair it with longboards and apply several coats of Interlux Interprotect 2000. If a seam needs attention, it will be reefed out and filled with two-part Life-Calk, which is sand-able once hardened. More sanding and fairing follows, after which black Baltoplate antifouling will be applied.