The last few days have been spent mostly sanding and sanding and sanding. My only advice to anybody else starting a boat of their own….budget to pay somebody else to sand and paint it for you 
But finally, at 2 this afternoon I started the first coat of paint on the hull. I was done at 4:30. Brushed it all on.
I wound up using Benjamin Moore alkyd paint called Metal and Wood Interior/Exterior 133 01 High Gloss enamel. I wound up using white…if I decide to change it I can just paint over it someday. The paint went on very nicely using a 4 inch brush. I just went out and checked and I have no runs … it smoothed out pretty good. You can see brush strokes … but it looks decent overall. There were a couple of places where I sanded through the primer down to the epoxy covered wood and those spots will benefit from having another coat put on tomorrow but otherwise the coverage is great. This paint was a distinct pleasure to use compared to the epoxy primer. It really doesn’t look much different as the primer was white. I took some pictures but they didn’t look very good as I had the doors closed to keep the wind from blowing dust onto the paint.
The last couple of days I have also built bunks to hold the boat for the trailer that is being put together for me next week.
Today I also cut up the 1/4″ x 4″ x 24″ piece of UHMW plastic that I bought to use as a slippery surface between the rudder cheek and rudder. I fitted it to the rudder cheek, trimmed it with the jigsaw and router, drilled holes and countersunk them a bit. I think it looks pretty good…
I wound up the day by epoxy coating the rudder, cheek and leeboard. I may put some fiberglass tape on the leeboard and rudder leading and trailing edges tomorrow….before or after I put the second coat of paint on the hull.
