Lackey Sailing | August West 8

March 20, 2020

August West 8

Friday

To begin, I finished off the work on the companionway rails, chiseling and sanding the new bungs smooth.

The owner and I were in discussions about whether to replace the cove stripe, or simply remove it; he was conflicted, so since the old vinyl needed to be removed anyway, we agreed to remove the old striping and let the altered appearance settle in for a while before making the final decision on whether to replace it.

During the morning, I removed the old striping with a heat gun, and cleaned up any remnants of adhesive thereafter. Up close, there was a slight ghost of the old striping still visible, as the gelcoat beneath the stripe had not faded like the rest of hte hull, but this disappeared from only a foot or so away, and is not visible in the photos either.

The cove stripe (or not) was perhaps an important feature in the overall appearance of the boat, but far more important in this case was a change in color scheme from the drab black bottom and drabber brown/rust-colored boottop to a new, bolder, and crisper scheme of black boottop and green bottom paint. These changes would have an instant and dramatic effect on the boat’s appearance, and, given this, would be important in terms of evaluating the cove stripe and, come to that, the potential eyebrow accent we were considering.

The existing boottop was generally sound, but worn and a little lumpy, so to prepare I sanded it thorough a couple grits to remove any loose paint (which meant most of the top layer of reddish-rust-colored paint) and get down to a decent substrate. I chose to sand by hand with a small sanding block since the area was relatively small, and this would minimize dust in the air that I didn’t really want all over the deck and bare teak. Sanding away the top layer of paint revealed the more original lighter brown color beneath, which was sound and in good condition, so I saw no reason to sand further.

After vacuuming and solvent-washing, and a drying period, I masked off the boot above and below.

Then, after final preparations, I applied the first of a couple coats of gloss black paint to the boottop. This looked better instantly, though until the new color went on the bottom the boat wouldn’t look quite right.