Someone who washes the hulls before every race doesn't make them win but instead if they are taking the time to do so it means they probably have completed all other preparation...

Take a drag racer for instance... does it make them faster when they have the big truck and trailer painted to match the car, their tool boxes are also painted team colors and they are all wearing matching team jackets? Of course not. But it probably does mean they have exhausted spending money on all of the car stuff that does make them faster.

Someone could prove me wrong and give the example of a person who washes the boat but forgets to cleat the main halyard. I bet overall if you know someone whose boat is spotless, their hardware, lines and sail preparation are also the same.

"You've got to look good to sail fast"

^ a better take on my motto:

"if you're gonna suck, you might as well look nice doing it" :P

P.V.A is used by all fibreglass manufacturers world wide. We commonly refer to it as "release agent" (as opposed to release wax which is what we put onto moulds before the release agent is applied) You can spray it on, sponge it on, brush it on, or even put it on with a rag, but for best effect it is applied as thinly as possible. To put it on a hull for transportation would work fine except that if there was the slightest amount of moisture in the air ie rain or even wet roads, it reacts to the application of moisture so well that it would dissapear off the hull in the first few minutes of travel when wet.
Darryl J Barrett

Mary,

I believe you may have washed more hulls than anyone...brings to mind the first time I ever met you and
Rick. It was 1981 at Division 10 Championships in Traverse City. Your yellow TheMightyHobie18 was upside down on the grass next to the parking lot when we drove up. You and Rick were working over the hulls with 600 grit wet sandpaper, followed by...washing the hulls!

You know why we were wet-sanding the hulls? The very first regatta we went to with our Hobie 18, in 1980 at Sandusky Saiing Club in Ohio, our boat was beautiful and new and shiny. Then someone pulled into the rigging area with a dull, gray, ugly Hobie 18, no stripes or decals or anything on it. It was John Barnett. We were informed that he was the hotshot dominating Division 10. We were newcomers who had never even sailed a Hobie before. Well, we beat John in the first race, much to his surprise; but he won the regatta. So we decided we were going to have to wet-sand our hulls and make them dull and ugly like his.

Apparently, that wet-sand theory has since been debunked, but at the time....well, you do what the winner is doing.

By the way, do you happen to have a picture of Rick working on the hulls? I would like to put it on my refrigerator.

The only way I have seen to protect your boat during long trips is to cover your boat. The methods mentioned above, work to a degree, but you still have to wash your boat. Also some soaps turn to slime when mixed with salt water so you go really fast off the tramp and into the water if you cover your boat with soap and don't get all the soap off.

You can use a covered trailer, have a custom cover made or use plastic wrap. The plastic wrap is cheapest, is easier to take on and off than a custom cover and is a low investment so if you don't like it you can stop.

The plastic film I use was made for airlines to cover luggage. It is a super saranwarap that only sticks to itself. I use it to cover the bow when I don't feel like putting the cover on

To apply it, put the roll on a stick and wrap the parts of the boat you want to stay clean. To remove it, slide a knife under it and cut it.

I can't tell you where to buy it because mine was given to me. But they used to offer to wrap your luggage with it in the Miami Airport.

Also it seems only fair that the strongest person should wrap the boats.

Carl

I got some of that plastic wrap at a trucking company and at "Ikea" a furniture place.

I agree the strongest should do the wrapping.

Mary,

Sorry, but I have taken very few pictures over the years. If I knew then what I know now, I would have taken a picture of Rick working on the boat! It would have been a collectable!

I took a picture from the Waterfront's third floor looking down the beach at all the boats with all those colorful sails up just before they left the beach for the first race. There were 300 boats registered that year including 4 fleets of H16...60 in A-Fleet and 55 in B-Fleet, etc., etc... That was a beautiful site! Unfortunately, I can't seem to find that picture! It sure would be great for a "good ol' days" illustration!

PVA- polyvinyl alcohol- is usually green and thick obtained by the quart at an automotive paint store or where fiberglass supplies are sold. Yup- I suppose it would wash off quickly in a rainstorm- and then the muddy road dirt would start sticking again.... ick.

The best protection that I know of for a boat is to rub "baby oil" all along the gunwales and the deck of "ALL YOUR COMPETITORS BOATS", it sure keeps your boat healthy clean and out in front at the finish line (just hope it gets you back to shore, packed up and on the way home before the other boats get in)
Darryl

PVA - poly Vynal Acetate.

in north america it is poly vinyl alcohol

Poly Vinyl Acetate is commonly called "a water soluble alcohol"
Darryl

Bet you $5AUS that PVA ain't an acetate.
Poly Vinyl Alcohol is an alcohol, water soluble because of the -OH (hydroxyl group). An alcohol may be converted to an acetate with acetic anhydride: this means to attach the acetate group to the OH, losing a water molecule. No more alcohol group and no more water solubility.

Well! yes. Acetic Acid Ethenyl, Polymer with Ethenol
Ethoxylated Aceylenic Diols
clear has 50% Ethenol
But who's really counting?

Rick and Mary, Buy one of the bolt on kits, and start running your diesel on friolator oil! The kit costs about $800.00 from what I've heard, but then you get all that free fuel! Just pull into a restaurant and fill up! I don't think the soot is as big a problem, but your boat will no dout still get a little oily, and smell like french fries!

We can get 80 gallons of oil from a restaurant?

Mary! you help to look after the environment responsibly by sailing instead of powering along at sea in a "stink boat", but then you, by your own admission pump all that black, foul smelling, pollutant into the air, and all over your boat as well. (Whooo perhaps it is spooky mother nature trying to tell you some thing? Perhaps she is saying "MAARYY, MAARYY, PLEASE MAARYY get a new , non polluting way of moving on the road"

No, it wasn't Mother Nature -- it was Brian. And because I was taking a sincere interest in his suggestion, I was just curious whether it is possible to get that much oil from one restaurant, or whether you have to keep stopping at every fast-food restaurant you see and putting in a gallon here and a gallon there.

And, of course, if it became popular to use recycled cooking oil, it would become a matter of patriotic duty to increase our consumption of french fries to increase the supply of fuel. So our air would be cleaner, but we would all be obese and have clogged arteries.

Personally, I like my own invention -- a self-recharging electric car. It runs on batteries just like any electric car, but you also have the battery connected to a small wind turbine on the roof of the car -- as long as you are moving, the wind turbine is charging the battery.