To begin, I finished up the masking around the brightwork on the cabintop.
Afterwards, I applied the first coat of varnish to all the wood. This was a heavily-thinned down coat (approximately 50%) to allow the varnish to soak in to the bare wood. Even so, there are few more immediately satisfying things than applying the first coat of varnish to bare wood. The transformation was instantaneous and pleasing.
I spent the morning scrubbing the nonskid with rags and solvent to clean the surface as much as possible. This did have a good effect on most areas, and in any event I now thought that the surface was prepared as well as it could be for recoating.
When the work on the nonskid was done, I cleaned the brightwork and surrounding areas as well to prepare for masking and eventual refinishing.
I spent the afternoon masking the brightwork, taking care of both toerails, both eyebrows, the anchor platform, and cockpit coamings before the end of the day. I’d finish up the coachroof areas next time.
The owner asked me to refresh the nonskid. The existing nonskid was not original, but had been painted with KiwiGrip sometime in the past. Overall, it was still in good structural condition, but the original application was somewhat uneven in texture, though still doing its job. The texture was quite rough and aggressive in many areas.
Because it was well-adhered and in good condition overall, I thought preparing the surface for a new coating of the same material required enough sanding to flatten the peaks, remove some of the texture, and provide a reasonable surface to which the new coating could adhere. I wanted to get all the heavy sanding work out of the way on deck now, before beginning to apply new finishes, so my first step was to sand the existing nonskid with 80 grit, keeping away from the gelcoated borders (though the thickness of the nonskid coating tended to hold the sander up just high enough) and flattening the old texture, though stopping well short of any attempts to completely smooth the surface or remove the old coating entirely. This also did not remove all the discoloration and staining from the depths of the old texture, but I planned to wash the decks next time. This work, and an initial cleanup, consumed the bulk of the day.
At the end of the day, I took a few minutes to install teak bungs in some unused bolt holes in the anchor platform, where the small anchor roller had been, and to repair one missing bung at the aft end of the port toerail.
It seemed a good day to finish up some of the last details required before moving on to primer and paint. I started with the aft seat cleats, which I’d already epoxy-coated and varnished. To install the cleats, I masked off a portion of the aft tanks, and taped the plywood seat in place so I could roughly determine the fore and aft position of the cleats. The cleats were longer than the seat was wide, and were designed to extend beyond the seat by a bit on both sides. By eye, I determined the placement and made a mark on one side, which I duplicated on the other. This gave me the forward end of the cleats; then, I marked a line 7/8″ down from the top of the aft tanks, which represented the top edge of the cleats. From there, I dry-installed the cleats with two screws each, which screws would also hold the cleats later when gluing in place.
Note that in these photos, I had the boat propped vertically with the transom on the floor, which gave me the best access for this work.
With the cleats thus installed, I cut around them with a knife and, after removing the cleats, pulled the tape from the footprints. Then, I installed the cleats permanently in thickened epoxy in the usual way, pulling the masking tape once I’d cleaned up the squeezeout.
Next, I unclamped the rudder case and spent some time sanding it clean and smooth. I block sanded flush the ends where the 18mm plywood spacer met the edges, and rounded over and sanded smooth the edges of the plywood, with a small roundover hand-sanded on the inside edges of the plywood as well. I built a simple plywood support stick that friction-fit inside the case, leaving all edges and sides accessible at once for epoxy-coating, the first coat of which I applied now. I clamped the stick to the bench to let the epoxy cure all over. There’d be a couple additional coats of epoxy over the next several days.
For the rowlocks, my next step was to drill through the gunwales for the 5/8″ bore required for the rowlocks themselves; the wooden risers had this 5/8″ hole already installed, which acted as a guide to drill through the gunwales. I clamped a sacrificial board beneath each location so the drill wouldn’t break out and damage the underside of the gunwales. I dry-fitted the rowlock bases to make sure the flanges fit flat against the riser; on one location I ran the drill bit through again to slightly open up the bottom part of the hole and allow the barrel of the rowlock base to fit properly and allow the flange to sit flush.
Those would get permanently installed later, but now I masked off around the holes and treated the new bores with epoxy, using a small brush to coat the insides of the holes. I’d do at least one more coat later before calling this complete.
With the rest of the brightwork stripped and sanded, I turned to a few loose parts I’d removed: the pedestal table and companionway swashboards. These also required stripping and sanding so they could be refinished.
After removing hardware, I stripped and sanded the wood clean.
Now that I’d removed all the old finish by scraping, it was time to finish cleaning up and preparing the wood with sanding. Starting at the starboard bow, and the anchor platform, I worked throughout the say to sand all the teak with 80-120 grit paper, working my way down the toerail/rubrail, as well as the eyebrow trim and outboard side of the coamings. I used a small palm sander where I could, and by hand as needed for tight areas, curves, and in particular the long lengths of headsail tracks along the aft quarter of the toerail, where the overhanging track prohibited access by anything other than hand sanding.
I continued around the taffrail, and up the port side from there, making it about halfway up the port side (to the forward end of the headsail track) by the end of the day. I might have finished the port side (and had intended to), but lost an hour earlier in the day trying to fix (and succeeding thanks to hosting support chat) yesterday’s website upload problem (apparently I’d used up my disk space on my VPN, which was a surprise since I thought it was unlimited ( and was why I switched to a VPN some years ago)) since I couldn’t get hold of my web guru (who was supposed to be available for these behind-the-scenes things that I clearly don’t understand). I’ll be looking for a new web guru from here. (And now I’m done with the parentheticals.)
Now that the epoxy had cured overnight, I removed the rest of the masking from the rowlock risers.
Next, I turned to the rudder case. Before disassembling the dry-fitted parts, I noted the reason why it was unimportant that the fiberglass sheathing on the insides of the side panels didn’t have to extend to the tips: the area was completely contained within the area covered by the internal plywood spacer.
I disassembled the clamped-up parts and pulled the alignment nails, leaving their tips just poking out through the plywood to aid in aligning the center spacer. Then, I applied epoxy gluing mix to the spacer and installed it on one of the cheeks (facing up on the bench), then applied glue to the other side and installed the second panel, tapping in all the alignment nails, ensuring the parts were visually and by touch, and then clamped the pieces securely.
I didn’t overdo it with the epoxy, using enough without too much of a surfeit, and now I cleaned up the narrow interior of the assembly with a dry brush to remove the minimal epoxy that had squeezed out on the inside; the way the assembly worked, the interior had to remain clean and clear for the rudder to fit and operate properly. I checked carefully with a strong light shone into the space to ensure it was clear. At the top of the case, where the tiller would eventually go, I smoothed the excess squeeze out into a small fillet on each side.
I left the rudder case securely clamped to cure overnight or longer.
Picking up where I left off last time, I continued sanding the teak on deck, finishing up the port toerails, eyebrow, and anchor platform. Generally, the wood cleaned up nicely with the two rounds of sanding, with few indelible stains, and the wood grain had fortunately been protected for long enough that even the weathered areas remained smooth and easy to sand clean and flat.
From there, I climbed on deck to sand the remaining teak: handrails, cockpit coamings, companionway, and assorted bits. This completed the sanding phase, other than a few pieces I’d removed from the boat that still required stripping and sanding (namely the swashboards and pedestal table).
To begin, I finished removing the masking tape from the new foot cleats.
Next, I worked on the layout and preparation to install the rowlock risers. These were centered 2″ and 22″ on each side aft of the bulkhead in the after hull section, and at these points I installed two layers of masking tape to cover the gunwales, and marked at the appropriate measurement using a straight ruler as shown in the book. Then, I marked a line in 13/16″ from the gunwale edge to center the risers longitudinally.
I masked off the risers, and, with each one in turn clamped in place properly aligned with its two centering marks, used a knife to cut the gunwale masking tape along the outline of the riser.
I epoxied the risers in place with the usual thickened mixture–no clamps required. I carefully cleaned up the squeezeout from around each riser and let them be to partially cure.
Several hours later, the risers had cured enough that I could remove the tape from the gunwales, but I wouldn’t remove the tape from the risers themselves till the epoxy had fully cured overnight.
I dry-assembled the rudder case parts so I could drive alignment nails (for use during final glue-up) and check the fit of the now-completed rudder in the assembly. First, I clamped the two plywood halves together and drilled the 1/4″ through-holes at the two locations (one for mounting the rudder, the other for the tiller). Then I inserted the rudder in the space–it fit with only a slight friction, which I felt was correct–and, with a drill bit inserted through the hinge pin hole, checked its general orientation and operation, all of which seemed good. The tiller as is fit nicely in the upper section of the rudder case, which meant that now I could go ahead and varnish the tiller to complete it.
I was tempted after the dry fit to go ahead and glue up the three parts of the rudder case, but it promised to be a fairly fussy process and, as I’d used up my self-allotted time for the day, I didn’t want to feel rushed through the process (there’d be a bit of fiddly glue cleanup inside the case itself), so I left the final assembly for next time.
While there were still small jobs to do, I allowed myself an hour or two first thing in the morning to accomplish what I could before shifting focus to my other ongoing project. To begin, I flipped the foils over and applied a gloss coat of epoxy to the second side, same as the first.
Next, I worked on the rowing foot braces. The kit came with a paper template to locate the braces, which I used quickly to locate four large patches of masking tape on each side, then replaced the template so I could accurately mark the locations with little marks at the four corners of each slot. I repeated this process on both sides of the boat. I held each of the eight braces in place and cut around the base with a knife, so that I could remove the tape from the footprint. I labeled each foot brace and location accordingly.
I masked each brace completely for protection, then installed them in a thickened epoxy mixture, cleaning up the excess glue but leaving all the tape in place for the moment.
After a few hours, I carefully removed the tape from the hull, but left the tape in place on the braces themselves as I didn’t want to jar the still-curing epoxy. I left the braces to cure overnight, and would remove the remaining tape in the morning.
