It is too hot to do much physical work on Naiad today, pretty much like yesterday and that is good as it gives the paint a chance to harden up. The work I did yesterday was in the cool of the early morning. This afternoon I did a few small things and then tried to lightly scour the copper epoxy with a stainless steel scouring pad.

Here is the rudder reassembled and hung up. the Photo is at a odd angle so that you can see the rudder is it will be on the transom and here you can see why I painted the copper epoxy and the boot top at an odd angle. The rudder blade spends most of the time like this so only the bits that need it have been anti-fouled.

This is one side of the copper epoxy after being lightly scoured. You can just see the slightly yellow colour of the copper.

Compared to the other side which is not yet scoured you can just about see the difference in the two photos. It's a little clearer in real life.

This type of copper epoxy needs to be scoured or it will not work The copper particles are completely covered in epoxy, or should be if I mixed it up enough, and that means that there will not be any water-copper contact, only water-epoxy contact and so the weed, slime and barnacles will easily grow on the hull under the waterline.

So you lightly scour the surface of the copper epoxy and that removes the top layer of epoxy and leaves copper exposed. The previous stuff I used, Synergy, didn't need this scouring as it is a different formulation and the epoxy was porous allowing the water to contact the copper without any scouring.

I only scoured one side as it was way too hot and I was seating buckets, so I'll do the rest once the sun has gone down and it's a little cooler. It has to be done tonight as we will be re-inverting Naiad first thing tomorrow morning which gives me the rest of the, slightly cooler, weekend to re-rig her. I'll also do a few other bits that need doing so that she can be relaunched, hopefully next week.