Kamali’i today got its first coat of primer and is now set for to get the remainder of its hull painted tomorrow afternoon at the hale wa’a in Kihei. Two coats of primer went on after a bit of a setback with the primer, the sprayer and the setup, but at about 3:30pm this afternoon, the first coat was on.
At around 4pm today, the iakos and the ama arrived. A HUGE MAHALO to Uncle Kimokeo for donating one of his amas and a set of iakos for the project. Without the help and support of Uncle Kimokeo, this project would be far behind where it is today. Â The iakos are in excellent condition, and the ama is in pretty good shape as well. It will need a couple minor repairs before painting, but all-in-all, it looks pretty solid!
Additionally, we have the potential to have a few other boats joining us on the journey over. It looks like Uncle Kimokeo’s crew will be coming along with about 18 of his guys and our crew should have around 12-15 guys as well. That with several escort boats that are looking to help us along, and we’ll be setup for a great crossing at the end of the month!
At this point, we still need to get a set of rails for the canoe and we would like to get shirts made for the crew as well, but we’ll probably need a donor to help with this. So if that’s you and you’d like to support this project, please let us know! But for now, stay tuned, more coming soon!
Prepping the boat for her first coat…
Well, here she is with her first coat! Looking good, huh? Wait ’til you see what’s next…