Lackey Sailing | Further 11

December 27, 2022

Further 11

Tuesday

I started out by applying another round of fairing filler to the hull-deck joint, wanting to ensure that I had ample time for the job. While the overall profile of the area was good, there were numerous (slightly) low areas requiring the additional filler, as well as continued work at the top edge. As with other times working on this area, I masked off the top and bottom edges beforehand to ensure clean lines and minimal contamination of adjacent areas with hard-to-sand epoxy, removing the tape immediately after the fairing compound application.

The topsides were in good condition, but there were several areas where the gelcoat was pockmarked with small voids. While I knew there’d be other small repairs throughout the topsides, for the moment I focused on these known places and, as needed, marked and sanded them to prepare for epoxy filler. The gelcoat voids were shallow, and my preparations included only removing affected material in shallow amounts, just through the yellow gelcoat in most areas.

With sanding complete, and after cleaning the affected areas, I applied a coat of epoxy fairing filler, using a wide trowel on most of the repairs.

During the remainder of the day, I continued the bulk hull prep and sanding, starting with the counter on both sides and working through 60-80 grits on the 6″ finishing sander. From there, I continued with the transom, removing old stickers and vinyl graphics (I’d previously measured and noted details of the graphics for future reference) and sanding as needed, then working my way forward on the port side, eventually meeting the section near the bow where I’d begun the process some time before and completing the first passes. There’d be more hull sanding to come, but the initial rounds removed gloss and prepared the surface for future steps.