Major Restoration of Ariel of Victoria with Sea Hawk Products

During the last 18 months we have undertaken a major restoration of our boat, Ariel of Victoria, a one-off wooden ketch built on Vancouver Island in the mid 70’s. She was traditionally built plank-on-frame with a laid deck.

The first phase of the project addressed the bottom. Originally painted with a coal tar epoxy primer, the wood underneath 35 years of bottom paint was in remarkably good shape and we wanted to apply a coating that would offer similar longevity.

Sea Hawk’s Black Barrier Coat primer was easy to apply by HVLP sprayer (thinning based on current temp is important) and the long recoat time was an advantage given how long between completion of that phase and relaunching. I was also impressed with how well the primer held up over the last year as we moved on to the second phase (the deck). Given the success with the other Sea Hawk products I have used in the past (bottom paint, Tough Stuff primer, fillers and varnish), I was confidant that I would have support along the way.

The deck was split into two parts: house top and main deck. The house top was built on top of laminated African mahogany deck beams using Sea Hawk’s marine-grade epoxy, Hawk Epoxy, and sifted mahogany sawdust for color matched filler. The first layer of decking plywood (that would become the overhead) was painted before installation and then put down with Sika 292i. The next two layers of plywood were put down with Hawk Epoxy, and Hawk Epoxy with structural filler.

We then sheathed the housetop in 6oz cloth and epoxy. 2 coats were put down before a layer of fairing filler, sanding and finally 2 coats of Tough Stuff primer. I found Hawk Epoxy to be a very consistent product over the year that we worked on Ariel Victoria, with little to no product issues. Temperature and humidity affected the cure time and minor blush was noticed in the laminating done while it was snowing out. The epoxy sanded well during fairing. Having one resin product set able to do fiberglass layup, cold molding, and plywood laminating made life easier and allowed us to keep fewer products in inventory which helped control overall project cost. The 5 gal pump kits were a big help.

All in all we used 50 gallons of epoxy and hardener, 5 gallons of black barrier coat, 6 gallons of tough stuff primer, 10 pounds of structural fairing filler 15 pounds of fairing filler and a lot of rubber gloves. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend any of the Sea Hawk products to my friends and routinely use Sea Hawk products at work. They were a great partner on this project; we look forward to using our boat with the knowledge that should a problem arise, Sea Hawk’s exceptional technical support is only a phone call a way.

Daniel Joram
Seattle, WA

Additional note: after the restoration of Ariel of Victoria, two coats of Sea Hawk’s CUKOTE antifouling paint were applied to the hull bottom with an additional coat at the waterline of Sea Hawk’s premium dual-biocide antifouling, BIOCOP TF.