If You Take Care of Her... She Will Take Care of You: Haul-Out Day with Tula’s Endless Summer
After a year and a half of adventure and nearly 10,000 miles of sailing, Billy and Sierra from Tula’s Endless Summer are hauling out their vessel, Lorie Sue. As Billy puts it, "Everyone who has ever owned a boat knows if you take care of her, she'll continue to take care of you". In their latest video, the duo tackles a 1,000-hour engine service, deep cleaning, and a complete bottom paint job to ensure the boat is ready to head south for the winter.
Prepping the Running Gear
One of the most critical steps in this haul-out was protecting the underwater metals. To prevent electrolysis, it is vital to keep copper-based paints away from aluminum sail drives and bronze props. Billy started by cleaning the props with a plastic grinder disc to remove growth without damaging the metal, followed by hand-sanding with 80-grit sandpaper. To ensure a strong mechanical bond, he cleaned the bare metal thoroughly using TotalBoat Dewaxer & Surface Prep Solvent. Once the metal was prepped, Billy applied TotalProtect Epoxy Barrier Coat Primer. This sealed the metal and provided a perfect base for the antifouling paint. For the topcoat, they chose TotalBoat Outdrive AF, a copper-free antifouling paint specifically designed for underwater metals. This is the same trusted system Billy used when renovating the running gear on their previous project, the DeFever Trawler.
Deep Cleaning with White Knight
Before painting the hull, the team had to address the "brown stain" caused by tannins in the water from cruising the Chesapeake and the Carolinas. To tackle this, they used TotalBoat White Knight Fiberglass Stain Remover. As Billy demonstrated, this gel formula is wiped on, left to sit for about 15 minutes, and then rinsed off. The result was a night-and-day difference, removing months of buildup that scrubbing alone couldn’t touch.
The Finish Line: Spartan Bottom Paint
With the hull polished and waxed, the final step was applying the bottom paint. Before painting, they wiped down the hull to remove any wax splatter or debris that might prevent adhesion. For the main protection, Tula’s Endless Summer turned to TotalBoat Spartan Multi-Season Antifouling Paint. They applied two full coats to ensure maximum durability, with special attention given to high-wear areas like the rudders and the front of the keels. This isn't the first time Billy and Sierra have relied on Spartan to keep their hulls clean; they also applied Spartan green during their massive Trawler transformation refit.
Ready for Launch
After a few days of hard work—and some help from TotalBoat’s variable speed polisher to get the topsides gleaming—Lorie Sue was lowered back into the water. With the engines serviced and the bottom freshly painted, the boat is moving faster and more efficiently through the water, ready for the next leg of the journey.
Check out the full video on the Tula’s Endless Summer YouTube channel to see the complete transformation!
