January 9, 2016
Nomad 17
Saturday
With the fresh new hull looking good, it only followed that my next tasks needed to focus on the deck areas, which currently looked downtrodden and neglected. This boat had obviously spent a lot of time stored outdoors, whether covered or otherwise, and there were signs that the boat had been powerwashed to remove the worst of the dirt and neglect, with the stroke marks of the nozzle clearly evident. But despite this, the original gelcoat was in essentially good condition beneath the remaining dirt and oxidation, and I’d known from the getgo that I could salvage the original finish on the deck, a great time-and labor-saver. I only took a few photos showing the decks’ condition on this day, but other entries in this project log at the beginning of the project also show the original condition.
As anticipated, it took very little work to clean up the original gelcoat with a finishing compound, which I applied and buffed by hand. This removed dirt and oxidation, and restored color and shine to the gelcoat. Over the course of a few hours, I polished most of the deck areas, excepting the two cockpit wells, which I left for another time. But the main portions of the deck were done, and looked much better next to the shiny new hull.
Total time billed on this job today: 2.5 hours
0600 Weather Report:
Snow flurries, 22°. Forecast for the day: Partly sunny, 35°