sunday share.

This week brought us to the beginning of July and that meant we needed to make sure all our boat registration and documentation was up to date. When we purchased Interlude, we registered her to have her home port in Racine for tax purposes. Since she's a coast guard documented vessel, this means her hull should have her name and home port on the hull, 4 inches tall and clearly visible. Oops. Up until now, her hull has been emblazoned with Park Ridge IL as her home port (and not even in 4 inch type). 

Last week I ordered the decals from Boat US with the new home port city and when we went up, we applied the new ones. First though, we had to remove the old location (which was painted on). We scoured the internet for advice and found that a solvent and a rag should do the trick, albeit slowly. Acetone is a good option because it won't damage the gel coat and dries very quickly. Luckily we had some acetone on hand and plenty of rags to get us started. Oy! It was slow going. I spent 15 minutes working on one letter with little progress being made. At this rate, it'd take all day! Meanwhile, Josh taped a piece of brown paper bag to the letters on his end and was dampening it over and over with acetone in hopes that it'd loosen the paint and would rub off easier. Josh, the smarty pants he is, thought maybe a scrubber might work and sure enough, it turned our interminable affair into a blink of an eye's worth of effort. 

Once one side was completed, we turned the boat around in the slip so we could get at the other side. It took 30 minutes to clean off both sides, tops. 

Then came the application of the new home port. The instructions were very simple--wipe the surface clean with glass cleaner, put masking tape on either end of the decal (before removing the backing), line it up, put a strip of masking tape down the middle once it's where you want it to be, peel the backing one end at a time, and press down using the squeegee provided. Then repeat with the other end of the decal. Voila! Repeat on the other side.