Deck Refinishing—Stripping the Deck

Winter 2004-05

Thanks to the generosity of Tim Lackey we were able to store Dasein indoors at his heated boat barn during the 2004-05 winter, as we intended to paint the hull during the off-season. We wanted to make the most of this opportunity, so once the boat was inside we made the decision to also take care of the decks and toerail, thereby completing our entire slate of exterior projects. We knew this was an ambitious project, but we were feeling aggressive and decided to dive right in.

Hardware: Off!

The first step in prepping the decks was to get all the old hardward off. This is always a treat as the fasteners for deck hardware are invariably difficult to reach and either bent, badly corroded, or both. Fortunately, Tim volunteered to help with this part of the project, making the whole affair much easier. With Tim on deck, I was able to crawl into various dark recesses of the boat to get to the fasteners. The worst areas were along the side decks, as access to these areas was extremely poor.

As we were stripping hardware off we found that the original Pearson-installed aluminum backing plates were absurdly thin, and many were severely corroded—often to the point that the plates could be pulled off over the fasteners!

Over the course of several hours we were able to remove the bulk of the deck hardware, and we soon accumulated a large pile of hardware.

Once this was done I turned my attention to the ports. I knew that removing the ports and deadlights would mean that I would have to repaint the main cabin overhead and replace the foam-backed headliner that I had installed just the previous year in the head compartment, but since we were going to be awlgripping the whole boat, I wanted to either paint or powder-coat the aluminum port and deadlight frames. Removal of the ports was difficult as they were bedded in an incredibly tenacious silicone sealant. However by carefully prying with a 5-in-1 tool I was able to ease all of the ports and deadlight frames out.

One of the last items to remove was the engine control panel's wooden frame which was installed just the previous year. I was careful not to damage the frame while removing it, but it proved to be one of the most difficult pieces to remove on the whole boat. It was bedded in 3M's 101 sealant. This stuff was amazingly adhesive and after much careful prying I was able to break it free, but it actually removed a large chunk of gelcoat with it!

Additional Deck-Destruction

Once the hardware was removed, there were still a few things to remove: the seahood and the toerail.

The old seahood was a fully functional, but horribly ugly affair put together with plywood, covered with rough, painted fiberglass, and a large attachment flange. The hood was through-bolted with fasteners into the main cabin. Additionally, the hood was bedded in 5200 adhesive. Removal was straightforward: I pulled the through-bolts and then cut the seahood away using a reciprocating saw, keeping the blade between the flange and the cabintop. Within a few minutes the seahood was gone.

Lastly, I turned my attention to the old toe-rail. A couple years prior, I had taken some time to clean up the badly weathered toe-rail, but it was now time to replace the rail as part of the overall exterior restoration. Removing the toe-rail was actually easier than initially anticipated. I began the process by attempting to cut the rail away using a reciprocating saw, but after just a few minutes I found that it was easier to just pry each section loose using a cat's-paw. The rail simply pulled loose over the fasteners in many places, indicating severe water damage. In other places I simply broke the rail at each fastener, then backed the screws out with a drill.

Deck Refinishing—Prepping the Decks

Winter 2004-05

Once all of the deck hardware was off the boat, it was time to get down to brass tacks and prepare the decks for paint. The decks were, frankly, in appaling condition. They "featured" gelcoat that was so severely crazed that in many places the gelcoat was actually coming off in chunks. This crazing was not localized, but rather, quite consistent over the entire deck, cockpit, and cabin trunk areas. Clearly this needed to be addressed, and the notion of crinding out each crack individually was ludicrous. A different approach was needed.

A Plan of Attack

After consideration of the problem, I decided that the best way to deal with flaking gelcoat was to simply encapsulate it. The "traditional" approach to this sort of situation is to open up each crack with a grinder and then to individually fill each one with fairing compound. But given the extent of the crazing that I faced, this didn't seem to be a viable option. Another way to deal with things would have been to grind all of the gelcoat off the boat entirely, but this would not only require a superhuman grinding effort, but would then require incredible amounts of fairing and surfacing work in order to prepare the deck surface for paint. After much consideration I decided to encapsulate the old gelcoat under a layer of light fiberglass cloth. The hope was that this would not only provide a nice surface for new paint, but would also minimize or even prevent print-through of the gelcoat crazing.

Grind, Grind, Grind, Vacuum, Grind

The first step was to grind the old non-skid texture off the boat. I wanted to have a reasonably smooth surface for laying down the new glass to promote good adhesion and minimize problems with air bubbles. This step was far more difficult that I had imagined before I started. At some point in the past, a previous owner had awlgripped the decks. Between the rough texture of the nonskid pattern and the incredibly tenacious awlgrip surface, grinding proceeded very slowly, eating up an incredible amount of time and 40 grit sanding discs.

The grinding revealed a number of lovely colors as I worked through the light grey Awlgrip and golden primer, revealing a horrifiying sea-foam green gelcoat color, which made me a little sea-sick just to look at it. The entire initial grinding process took a bit over 7 hours, which I completed in one awful grinding marathon one evening. The mess was beyond description.

A Few Minor Issues

At this point I took the time to take care of a few minor issues that I needed to deal with before I could proceed. One of those issues was to fill the old hole left the cockpit-access to the old icebox which we had replaced with a super-insulated box. I filled this opening by grinding a hefty bevel and then laying in six layers of heavy biaxial fabric, temporarily supported from below by a sheet of plastic wrapped plywood.

Additionally, we wanted to reinforce the cockpit sole. To do this, I set a single layer of 3/8 inch meranti plywood in thickened epoxy. Since Tim had numerous scraps around the shop, I was able to piece this together from 3 smaller sections. I planned to cover this with a couple of layers of cloth when we glassed the boat. Note that this photo was taken after adding the cloth, but it gives the sense of how the ply was pieced together.

Spot Fill

The next step was to mix up a batch of fairing compound and fill the areas where the gelcoat had chipped away. The inital grinding had knocked loose some additonal gelcoat as well. The worst areas in this regard were on the starboard side deck, but I was amazed at how bad this problem was overall. It's amazing how easy it is to overlook these cosmetic problems after you've been living with them for a while.

After applying the spot filler I had to grind these areas smooth, which I did using the DA and 40 grit paper. I found that I had some areas which needed another application, which meant another round of grinding, too. Already the grinding was beginning to grow old. But at this point I was ready to go ahead and lay on the encapsulation glass. Click here for another view showing the condition of the decks after spot-filling.

At this point I also took the time to so some substantial filling and fairing of the old access hatch opening. While I had already glassed that area in, the glass was a bit sunken with respect to the surround level and it required quite a bit of fairing compound to bring it up level with the surrounding cockpit seat. I didn't worry about getting it perfect, but I did want it to be relatively flush and smooth. This required a couple of applications of compound.

Section, Measure, Template, and Cut

I had decided to use a single layer of 10oz finishing cloth to encapsulate the old gelcoat. Tim was also planning to use a light-weight finishing cloth as part of glassing regime for the decks of his daysailor so we split a full roll of the cloth. Sadly, I seem to have misplaced all of my photos from the templating and cutting of the glass. Sorry!

The procedure was pretty simple. First I sectioned out the boat, drawing a centerline down the boat. I then measured back the width of the cloth, drawing lines across the boat perpendicular to the centerline. It was rather odd to be drawing lines and notations directly on the deck of the boat using a SharpieTM marker. I then cut pieces of cloth to fit the areas. I cut the pieces so that they would butt together, but not overlap, and so that they would cover the flat toerail area. I labeled each section on deck, and marked each corresponding piece of glass, then carefully folded them up and put them aside.

Epoxy and Glass Marathon

I had helped Tim with the glassing of the daysailor decks a few days before, so I roped Tim into returning the favor. Tim got materials spread out and ready and set up some temporary staging while I vacuumed the boat and wiped down with acetone. Once the boat was cleaned up we donned stylish Tyvek pants and got ready to roll.

We quickly fell into the routine of it all, and things proceeded quite smoothly. We did find that we needed to work quickly, as the System Three resin with the fast hardener didn't have a very long pot life (to be expected, of course), but we found that if we got it out of the pot quickly and spread it out we would have a pretty reasonable working time to get the glass rolled out before the resin became too sticky to work with. It was interesting that the resin would be fine and then all of a sudden it would reach the tack point. Sometimes I would be rolling along and right in the middle of a stroke it would tack up.

Procedure was basically to lay the dry piece of glass onto the deck then pour the resin on top, spreading it out with a squeege. As the resin soaked in, we would then roll it out with air rollers, paying special attention to the various curves and fillets. Once the bulk of the rolling was done, one of us would mix up a fresh pot and get started on the next section while the other finished up the rolling out of the previous piece.

I was very pleased with the way the conformed to some of the compound curves on the forward and aft ends of the cabin trunk. Only in 2 or 3 places did we have to make relief cuts to get the glass to lay down! It took about 6 and a half hours to finish the whole process, with only one 15 minute break during the procedure. By the end we were getting pretty punchy, and some rather inappropriate "shop jokes" were born. Click here for another view of the boat after glassing was finished.

Deck Refinishing—Fairing and Surfacing

Winter 2004-05

The next part of the project was to fair the new glass surface. While the new glass provided a relatively good surface to start with, it certainly wasn't ready for paint.

More Grinding

The first thing to do was give the new glass a preliminary grinding. After scrubbing the decks with a ScotchBriteTM pad and fresh water to remove any amine blush, I attacked the glass with the DA and 40 grit paper. In many areas the glass was quite resin-rich, and I wanted to remove an pools of hardened resin. As I went along I did find a handful of air pockets that we had missed, but therer were probably only 5 or 6, and they were tiny. I ground these areas out entirely. In general however, I was careful not to cut into the new glass. What a mess. The picture only begins to allude to the wonderful fun I was having.

After working over the entire boat with the 40-grit, I got ready for the first coat of fairing compound. I had basically determined that I would need to skim coat the entire surface, which I troweled on with a plastic squeege, trying to keep it as smooth as possible. Once the compound had kicked, I tackled yet another round of seemingly interminable grinding—this time with 80-grit paper. This was the worst yet, as the majority of material that I had applied needed to come right back off. Further, the epoxy fairing compound had a nasty ability to instantly clog the paper.

The grinding was pure misery, and when finished the boat was covered with a thick nasty purple dust. As was everything else in the shop, including me. The grinding took nearly 8 hours, performed, as usual, in a single marathon session. By this time the whole concept of grinding the boat was literally becoming overwhelming. I can understand how projects get started and then never get finished.

Touch-ups

Fortunately, after the first fairing round, the boat was actually in pretty good shape. There were a few areas that would clearly need spot filling, and a few areas that needed more actual fairing, but overall I was quite pleased. Over the next few days I went through 2 more rounds of minor fairing and grinding. For the first I used more epoxy with microballoons. By this time I had burned through about 5 gallons of mixed resin! I also put a layer of light glass over the taffrail/transom hull deck joint, as I intended to have a nice raised, open taffrail, and wanted a smooth rounded transition from deck to hull in this area.

For the final round I used some Alexseal fairing compound that Tim had mixed and had left over from his daysailor project. This was nice stuff with a smooth creamy consistancy and loooooong pot-life which made it really nice to work with. Plus, the nice grey color was a welcome relief from yet more of the nasty brownish-purple of epoxy and microballoons. It was psychologically uplifiting to be putting something different onto the boat!

White! White!

Finally, it was time to apply the high-build surfacing primer! Even though I knew I would be sanding much of it back off, I was really looking forward to spraying on the Alexseal surfacer. Tim had sprayed his daysailor project the previous day, so he was ready to go on my boat as well. As Tim is experienced with spraying, he had agreed to do the spray work on my boat. While I tacked off the boat, he moved the staging. We then donned our supplied air respirators and Tim mixed up the primer with the catalyst and reducer.

We sprayed the house and cockpit areas first, as once we sprayed the side decks we wouldn't be able to reach those areas for additional coats. We sprayed each area, then left the building for 30 minutes or so to let it tack off, then we returned to spray the area again. We put down a total of 3 coats in the cockpit and on the house before we turned our attention to the deck areas. The transformation was instant and dramatic. Even with just the first coat on the house areas the boat looked amazingly better, and I really felt like the boat was finally on the road to recovery.

I tried my hand at the spraying and did one side deck, but found that Tim was both faster and more effective at laying down the product, so I let him do the bulk of the spraying while I "supervised" and helped keep the hoses for the supplied air and the HVLP sprayer under control and out of the fresh primer.

Click here to view a short video clip of the spraying. (AVI format, 3.6meg)

We started the spraying process at about 1530 and were finished up before 2000. Many thanks to Tim for working late, as any who know him know that he'd rather start at 0430 and be done by 0900! When we were finished we stood back and admired the work—I was thrilled. Even with the slightly stippled surface of the heavy surfacing primer the boat looked better than she ever had since we owned her. Click here for another view.

After the surfacing primer had cured I went back and sanded it smooth with 120 grit paper on a palm sander. I couldn't believe how nicely the boat buffed out, and could hardly wait to apply finish primer and paint.

Scupper Work

As we had glassed over the cockpit sole, I needed to reconstruct the scuppers in the sole. Additionally, we wanted to address the tendancy for water to collect at the forward end of the cockpit seats during rainy weather.

The old drains in the sole were still in place, but I needed to drill out the plywood sole in that area and mill a flat-bottomed hole for the drain's grate to sit in. I had previously measured the location of the center of the drains so I was able to drill a pilot hole and then carefully mill the recess using a 2-5/8 inch forstner bit in a heavy-duty right-angle drill. Then I enlarged the drain hole using an appropriately-sized bit.

For the cockpit seat drains, I followed a similar course of action. I created the drains themselves from one-inch pvc pipe. I used a small 90-degree elbow, a short straight piece, and a pvc to hose barb connector. After milling the recess for the grate, I drilled a hole sized to the outside diameter of the pvc elbow, and epoxied the scupper in place.

Deck and Hull Priming

Winter 2004-05

After the fairing and surfacing was completed, it was time to turn our attention to finally getting primer and paint on the boat. We primed both the hull and deck together in a single day.

Taping and Tacking

The final prep work before finish primer included taping off the new toerail and sealing up all the openings in the deck surface. For most of the taping I used the expensive 3M Heavy-duty silver tape. For the toerail however, I used the expensive tape only on the edges of the rail that were against the deck and hull, then covered the rest of the surface with the less expensive blue maksing tape, using almost 2 full rolls of 1.5 inch wide tape.

White, Grey, White and Grey, White, Grey

Once again, Tim was doing the spray work, while I provided moral and hose support. We got an early start so that we could get a full 3 coats of primer on both the decks and hull before a late afternoon meeting. I arrived at the barn at about 0500, and while Tim took care of getting the gun ready and setting up staging, I vacuumed, solvent washed, and tacked off the hull, deck, and house surfaces.

Once again, we were using the relatively new Alexseal products—this time their finish primer. Soon enough we were underway with the spraying, but soon found that the gun was not putting out much material. After a couple of separate breakdowns we were able to find the clog and get the gun up and running correctly, and after only a delay of 45 minutes or so, we were once again under way.

To deal with the deck surfaces we first sprayed three coats on the house, spraying first white primer, then grey, and finally another coat of white. By alternating primer colors it was easy to see where we had already sprayed and ensure good coverage. The material went on quite nicely, leveling fairly well. Between coats we went outside and enjoyed the beautiful early spring sun while we let the previous coat tack up for about 30-40 minutes.

Once the house was done we followed the same procedure for the cockpit well and seats. Then we sprayed the primary deck surfaces themselves from the staging. On the decks we only sprayed 2 coats on the areas that were going to be nonskid, in an attempt to save enough white primer to put one coat on the hull.

After finishing the decks, we lowered the staging to a height appropriate for spraying the hull and followed the same procedure on the hull, except that we alternated grey-white-grey, as leaving a darker primer coat was fine with the dark green topcoat that was to be sprayed over it. Even with the downtime spent dealing with the gun, we were finished with the primer coats by about 1500.

Deck and Hull Paint—Topcoats

Winter 2004-05

Finally! It was a long time coming„I had put in an estimated 250 hours of prep work on the decks since January. But now in early April I was finally ready for topcoat paint.

More Prep Work

After the primer had cured I had yet more prep work to deal with. First I had to sand then entire boat to 320 grit in preparation for the super thin topcoat paint. This process had to be done entirely by hand in order to be sure that I didn't burn through the primer coats. I used the 3M Stickit sanding system, using their nice soft sanding block and sanded first with 220 grit and then with 320 grit. Sanding the decks took the better part of an entire day. The hull was quicker, as Tim helped out and between the two of us we had the hull done in just a couple of hours.

Next I spent a couple of afternoons masking off the areas for the borders on deck which would be painted white. This took quite some time as I tried to mask out a border around all deck hardware that I expected to put back on the deck. Not only do I like this look, but it makes subsequent repainting of the nonskid areas much easier. I initially drew out general guidelines using a set of dividers—a half inch around hardware, and an inch and a half for the general margins. I then neatened up the lines and adjusted them as necessary by eye when I placed the tape. At all corners I cut a smooth round using a quarter as a guide. Finally, I replaced the plastic used to cover all of the openings on deck.

Two Stage Process

Painting the hull and deck was a two-stage process. First Tim and I attacked the decks. Then we masked off the decks and painted the hull. To this end I masked off the hull using large sheets of plastic taped to the toerail. We set up staging, and while Tim got the topcoat paint and gun ready I vacumed, and tacked off the boat.

Two Days of Deck Paint

We followed the same general procedure with the topcoat as we did with the decks, starting by spraying the house, then the cockpit, and finally the decks. As we started the first coat on the house, the paint was laying down beautifully with an incredible gloss and not a hint of orange peel. We proceeded around the boat then put the gun aside to let the paint tack up before the next coat. At that point I noticed huge sags on both sides of the house area! What a disappointment!

We quickly regrouped however, and resigned ourselves to the fact that we would need to sand and repaint the house. We adjusted the flow to put a lighter first coat of paint down and proceded to spray the cockpit. Though it was a challenging space to spray, Tim did a great job and we put down three nice coats with about 45 minutes between to allow the paint to tack. We then moved on to the margin areas of the decks. Again we put down three coats before calling it a day.

I returned the next morning to sand out the house area and found that Tim had gotten an early start on that project. I helped finish up the sanding and vacumed and tacked again. We resprayed the house area, this time being very careful not to overload the paint, and got three very nice coats down. We did have a couple of small runs, and also an area that ended up with a huge amount of dust in it—it was sanding dust that had gotten trapped between the house and the interior liner at the bottom of the main deadlight openings in the main saloon. Despite these flaws the overall result was spectacular.

The Dark Green

I was most excited to see the new dark green hull. The day after finishing the decks, I returned to the shop to get the hull painted. With Tim's help I carefully rolled out some plastic sheet over the decks. I placed some scrpa two-by-four along the edges of the house to help keep the plastic off the fresh (first cure stage) paint wherever possible. We then carefully taped it to the toerail being sure that there were no gaps anywhere where the dark green overspray could get onto the fresh white paint.

I then solvent washed and tacked off the hull while Tim vacumed the shop floor and then hosed it down. We mixed up the paint, set the gun's flow for a very light first coat and started spraying. Even though the paint looked pretty awful with just one coat—thin and way too light in color—the transformation was instant and dramatic. After working our way around the boat we let the first coat flash off for about 30 minutes or so before beginning the next coat.

We applied two more slightly heavier coats for a total of three coats. The second coat really gave a good sense of how the boat would look when finished. Coverage was still a little light, but the color was much closer to what I had expected based on the color chip.

Because the first coat was so light, it was relatively easy for Tim to see where he was spraying when applying the second coat. The third coat however, was much more difficult as the color change was not very dramatic between the second and third coats. Additionally the air was quite full of overspray haze and the sun was streaming into the shop further reducing visability. To help keep track of where he had sprayed, Tim painted small guide marks down into the bottom paint area to show where he was along the hull.

The paint leveled quite well, and despite a small amount of orange peel to the finish and a couple annoying runs and minor flaws the paint looked spectacular. The gloss was out of this world, the color was exactly what I had envisioned, and the overall impact was truly staggering.

Click here to view a short video clip. (DIVX avi format, 8.5meg)

Boot Top

Tim agreed to help strike the new waterline and bootop, as he has done this several times before and has a good eye for it. We followed the general process he used on Glissando though we did have some problems getting the initial set up just right, as the boat was not exactly level from side to side. Eventually however, we prevailed and struck a boot of about 2 inches "visable height." That is to say that the boot appears to be about 2 inches tall when viewed from the side of the boat. Due to the curvature of the hull, of course, the stripe's actual thickness varies from spot to spot.

Once the boot was taped I began the process of laying on the silver Awlgrip paint that we had chosen for the application. This turned out to be a real nightmare as the metallic paint did not flow or cover particularly well when applied with a brush. Later experience spraying the paint on the ports and deadlight frames showed that the metallic paint really needs to be sprayed—spray application was great with spectacular coverage and a great even metallic sheen. Ultimately I ended up applying 5 coats(!) of the paint and the final result is not that great. I will likely spray the boot next winter.

Nonskid

The final job in getting the boat painted was to paint the nonskid on deck. The first step was to remask all of the nonskid areas. I then had to sand some minor white overspray from the nonskid areas. Once this was done I vacumed the decks and tacked off. I then prepared the paint.

I chose Petit's Easypoxy one-part polyurethane paint mixed with flattening agent and polymeric nonskid beads. I wanted a neutral grey color that was not too dark and after much thought I ended up mixing my own color using Petit's Platinum and Mist Gray. For the first coat I used a 50-50 mix of the two colors, which a small sample had shown to be close to what I envisioned. However, after rolling it on the large deck areas, I decided that it was too dark and industrial looking. I had planned two coats anyway however, so I resolved to lightent the mix for the second coat. The photo shows the lighter grey being painted over the darker first coat to show the difference.

I found that the nonskid rolled on nicely using a 3/8 inch nap roller and applied a very even nonskid texture with only a few uneven areas. The second coat increased the nonskid texture and helped even it out further. I found the Pettit nonskid additive to provide a quite aggressive nonskid texture—more so than the similar Interlux product.

Who's Boat is This?

The overall effect of the repainting can't be overstated. The boat, quite literally, looks like a brand new boat. The transformation is so dramatic that I can hardly believe that it's the same boat that moved into the barn 8 months ealier. Check out the picture. . . Remeber that old thing?

Toerail and Exterior Woodwork

Winter 2004-05

Work on the exterior wood projects was ongoing throughout the winter as time allowed. Some of the wood really needed to be installed before finish primer and paint, to minimize the chance of damage. Other parts could easily be installed at the end of the project. I have collected all of the woodworking projects togther onto this one page however, rather than try to put them into any sort of chronological sequence.

Toerail

Project photoAll along we had planned to replace the old semi-rotted, stained, and just plain ugly toerail. We weren't sure exactly what we wanted the new rail to look like, however. One thing that had been in my mind was to put Spartan Marine bronze mid-rail cleat/chock castings. Although we ultimately decided not to use the chocks, we ended up building the new rail based on the profile required to fit those chocks. The first step was to mock up the rail based on the measurements in the Spartan catalog to see if the resulting rail was pleasing to us. The design called for a 90 degree angle inboard, with an 11 degree bevel on the outboard side.

Project photoSatisfied with the look of the rail, the next step was to mill the basic profile. We chose, like the rest of the woodwork, to use mahogany for the toerail. We had some 17-foot-long 5/4 mahogany boards delivered to the shop and after a marathon planing session I was able to mill out 4 lengths of toerail stock on the table saw.

Once the pieces were milled, the next step was to scarf the lengths together, giving me two 34-foot-long sections of toerail. After the epoxy cured, I sanded everything down and put on two sealer coats of varnish. Finally, I cut one end of each toerail to fit at the stem.

Project photoAt this point I enlisted Tim's help and we wrestled the floppy things up onto the deck of the boat. We tied the stern end of the rail to backstay chainplate using a 3 foot piece of line just to keep the end from "winging" out while we fought with the forward end. Tim and I pulled the forward end in and he held it in place while I drilled, countersunk, and drove in a screw. We then proceeded aft with Tim pushing and pulling to get the rail in place while I drilled, countersunk, and drove a screw every 9 inches. When we were finished, several feet of rail were protruding past the end of the transom, but I hadn't decided exactly how I wanted to end the rail, so I just let them run wild.

Project photoWe then repeated the process on the starboard side. I was thrilled with the way the new profile looked! Sadly, this was only a dry fit and now that we had gotten the whole thing installed, we had to take it back off so that we could install it permanently with 5200 as an adhesive and sealant.

I applied a heavy bead of mahogany-colored 5200 to the flat on deck where the toerail would be attached. We then wrestled the pieces back in place and I drove the screws home. This proceeded without notable incident, besides being unbelievably messy, with 5200 squeeze-out everywhere. After the 5200 cured I was able to install the 90 or so bungs to cover the screws.

Rubrail

Project photoWith the toerail in place, I was able to turn my attention to the rubrail which in addition to giving the whole affair greater visual interest and bulk, was necessary to cover the hull deck joint. The rubrail I had in mind was little more than a small trapezoidal piece of wood with a slight rabbet to allow it it fit tightly against the hull. I ran a short test piece to determine the specifics of the cut angles, sizes, and order. I then milled several 8 foot sections. These were installed with screws and bedded in 5200. Once this was finished, I was able to get started on my varnish regime.

Taffrail

Project photoOver the course of the winter I had been pondering what to do with the taffrail. I didn't really want to just slap a solid block of wood back there and Tim suggested creating some sort of raised open design. After some thought and playing around with blue foam mock-ups, I decided to use three solid wood blocks to raise the taffrail up so that it sat on top of the toerail. I also decided that the blocks and toerail should continue the angle of the transom. This would allow the taffrail to actually sit slightly overhanging the stern.

Project photoI placed one block on the centerline, and centered the other blocks in the space between the center block and the toerails. (Note that the chainplate is attached to the side of the knee, and so is slightly off-center.) I also decided that the blocks looked "funny" lined up parallel to the center line, because of the angle of the toerail as it tapers toward the stern. Instead, I had each edge at a progressively larger angle. To figure this out, I first drew reference lines parallel to the center line. I then measured the angle of the toerail and drew a line at the centerline of the outer blocks which was half of the measured angle of the toerail. I then added 2 degrees to that measurement and drew a line at the location of the outboard edge of the block. I subtracted 2 degrees from that angle and drew a line at the location of the inboard edge of the block. This is much harder to describe than it was to do! Look at the reference lines in the photo, and it will probably make sense.

Project photoMy original plan had called for simply bending a solid mahogany board into place over the blocks, but the camber of the deck in this location was much greater than it appeared and I actually broke the board trying to bend it into place. Instead I had to laminate the taffrail out of three 1/4 inch boards. The easiest way to do this was to actually laminate it in place, using the blocks and toerail as the form. I test bent the pieces first, before breaking out the epoxy. Everything seemed OK, so I dove in.

Project photoI covered the whole stern of the boat with heavy gauge plastic, got all of the available clamps lined up, and started mixing the epoxy. While messy, the procedure was actually pretty straightforward. I placed the stack of boards in place and drove a single screw through them and into the center block. I then drove screws throught the two ends into the toerail. With the taffrail thusly bent and pinned in place, I was able to use a multitude of clamps to tighten everything up as best as I could.

Once the epoxy cured I removed the clamps and removed the taffrail from the blocks. This was a bit of a challenge since the screws were epoxied in place and I promptly broke the heads off of two of the screws. Wit much swearing, drilling, grinding, and prying I was eventually able to remove the rail without damage.

Project photoI had previously made a template of the molded flat where the old taffrail was installed, as I wanted the new raised taffrail to be the same size and shape. I transfered the curves to the new taffrail then cut it out using a jigsaw with the blade angled to match the angle of the transom. I finished up the shaping using my DA sander withthe taffrail temporarily installed. Once I was happy with the shape, I applied several coats of varnish to the underside, then installed it with screws and epoxy. Click here for another view of the finished taffrail.

Seahood

Project photoPart of the plan for the exterior renovation was to replace the old painted fiberglass-over-plywood seahood with a nicely built and finished mahogany one. My design called for a mahogany plywood top framed with solid mahogany. This would be attached with epoxy and screws to the solid mahogany sides. Because the mahogany ply was only 3/8 thickness, and I anticipated occasionally standing on the hood, I laminated the mahogany ply to a similar thickness of birch ply for increased strength.

Project photoRather than having a perfectly square-sided hood, I decided to carry the 11 degree angle used on the toerail throughout the other woodwork on deck. To this end, the sides of the the hood were at 90 degrees for about 1 inch, but then beveled inboard at 11 degrees. Additionally, I wanted to highlight the joinery somewhat, so I used a large box joint for the corners.

Project photoOnce the hood was test fit and was sitting nicely on the curved coachroof, I was able to attach the top to the sides. After the epoxy dried, inserted mahogany bungs to cover the screws then planed and sanded everything smooth. I had been careful to leave the solid mahogany frame slightly proud of the plywood, as the veneer on these plys is notoriously thin. In this way I was able to plane the solid wood down to the height of the ply without worrying about planing or sanding through the veneer.

Once this was finished I was able to proceed with varnish. Even after just two coats the hood really gleamed! I installed it on deck with polysulfide sealant and fastened with screws up from inside the cabin.

Forward Hatch

The old forward hatch was just a plain raw fiberglass lid. We knew that we wanted to get rid of the old, and the price of a new lexan hatch by Bomar or Lewmar seemed a bit steep, so I decided to build my own.

Project photoThe first step was to build a basic frame. I continued the angles and box joints that I used on the seahood with the frame pieces for the hatch. Once the frame was built I clamped it in place, leveled it athwartship, and scribed the deck camber onto the fore and aft frame pieces. I was then able to get a nice tight fit.

Project photoI then built a slightly smaller frame to fit on top, with a rabbet to sit over a wooden flange to give some measure of watertightness. For a lens we chose smoked grey acrylic, 3/8 inch thick. The acrylic arrived from the glass shop cut pefectly, but the edges were razor sharp, so I eased them with some sandpaper. I then predrilled the lens and installed it using massive amounts of butyl rubber sealant and pan head screws. The glass shop had warned me not to countersink, as an oval or flat head screw in a countersink could very easily be overtightened and break the lens.

Project photoThe wood was finished with about 7 coats of varnish. I installed the frame on the boat using polysulfide sealant and screws up from the interior. I installed a pair of hinges and a Bomar hatch riser and the project was finished. We are thrilled with both the looks and function of the new hatch, as it lets a ton of light below—a great upgrade. Click here to see the hatch in the open position.

Companionway Trim

Project photoThere is little to report about the new companionway trim. Basically I just replicated the old trim pieces with little modification and reinstalled them. I did take the time to countersink all of the screws and cover them with bungs however—something that wasn't done in the original installation. Once the various pieces were installed, I finished them off with 5 coats of gloss varnish.

Anchor Platform

Project photoWe planned to build a replacement anchor platform to hold the rollers for our two primary cruising anchors—a CQR and a Bruce. The old platform was functional, but ugly, and wouldn't work with the new taller toerail. We decided to build a new platform of a design similar to that which Tim had used on Glissando. This was a simple but effective design. The platform was 11 inches wide by about 40 inches long and supported at the forward end by the toerail itself. At the after end I built some supporting feet.

Project photoI finished the platform with about 7 coats of varnish. It was installed using six bolts through the deck and a substantial bed of polysulfide sealant. The rollers and cleats were simply bolted through the platform itself, and backed with fender washers.

While this platform seemed beefy, it was actually destroyed in a May storm that brought 40 knot winds with strong wave action to our anchorage.