S A LT Y D I TS
ADMIRALTY GREY PAINT –
CAVEAT EMPTOR
BY PAUL DEACON
T
he company owners were always on the lookout for a
bargain and attended an auction of Admiralty stores in
Portsmouth. The various lots for auction included cordage,
canvas, paint, tools and a range of redundant items taken off
decommissioned warships or out of naval warehouses.
The prized objects of the owners' shopping spree was a large
quantity of Admiralty grey paint which was trucked to Flathouse
Quay in Portsmouth and humped on board. Now, we are not
talking 10 or 20 gallons here, a substantial amount of which I'm
sure the auctioneer extolled its quality, but perhaps what he didn't
tell the audience was even more significant in that it had been
sitting around since about World War II.
The predominant colour of most ex-Dutch coasters in our
coasting fleet was grey, so applying Admiralty grey paint on top
of existing grey hulls seemed a sensible option even if it was old
naval stock. However, there was one company ship painted dark
blue, an ex-German built coaster purchased off the Finns that
required some major cosmetic work to alter her blue hull to grey.
I was mate on this ship and so was tasked with the operation.
Our first problem was prising open the drums of paint since
the seal was tight as a seagull's ass, although eventually with
the aid of hammers, spikes, pliers and grips we got the lids off
and gazed at the deep amber coloured resin. Several inches of
surface resin is not unusual as long standing paint often settles
Rust never sleeps
32 Professional Skipper May/June 2013
and separates, however the paint below the resin was solid after
years of unstirred passivity and it took remarkable strength and
energy to gain any movement of this solid sediment. Through our
exasperation we searched the drums for any date of manufacture
and saw none, we speculated greatly and conjured up a date of
1945, which rapidly backdated to 1918 as the task absorbed so
much time and energy.
The application of the paint to the ship's hull was fraught with
the usual problems of unfavourable weather conditions, minimal
opportunity between loading and discharging, being constantly
on the move and lack of crew. Most seagoing vessels usually
have a crust of salt that requires removal by fresh water before
paint can be applied properly. Cold, wet and salt covered surfaces
do not make for a good paint job, however in time the blue ship
became grey and looked remarkably smart until we experienced
gales where the ship smashed her bows into heaving seas for
days on end. To our surprise and disappointment the seas had
stripped the grey paint from the bow area leaving it dark blue so
the re-painting process had to be undertaken again. We realised
that no matter how carefully we cleaned and prepared a surface
for painting, this Admiralty grey was not going to stick. After
months of repainting and touching up we lost confidence in the
paint entirely and wondered what on earth to do with the huge
stock left sitting in the fo'c'sle.
