Monday, 1 August 2016

Maintenance weekend

It's been a descent weekend weather wise, we haven't moved from the spot we moored up in on Friday lunchtime. I have used the time to repaint the top of port side gunnel I painted two years ago but didn't quite get right. 

The gunnel is used to step on so requires an anti slip finish, I used premixed paint and sand but I put it on right up to the cabin side when I should have left a gap to allow rain to run of easily. It was difficult to remove, the bulk of it came off ok with an orbital sander but the 50 foot length up against the cabin side had to be done carefully by hand so I didn't touch the paint on the cabin side.

Not a bad place to stop for the weekend.


Gloss coat.




Gunnel taped ready.
Anti slip applied
Next the engine hole needed attention, surface rust had bubbled through the paint in a few places. One of the batteries had to come out to get to one of the patches. Used the scraper and wire brush then degreased the area with gunk and washed with water, rubbed it all with wet & dry paper, finally wiping it down with white spirit. 

Painted the whole area with rust converter, I use Aqua -Steel which acts as a primer too. Once the converter had done its stuff overnight it got an under coat and today it got a top coat.


Hard at it.





















Top of the swim needs attention

Job done.
For non boaters the red bit is the weed hatch, gives access to clear a fouled propeller, could also be called plastic bag hatch, bit of old carpet hatch, barbed wire hatch or dead fox hatch. These are some of the stuff others have found caught around the prop, we have only had one of our own fender ropes fouling the prop and on one other occasion a plastic bag in the three years we have owned the boat.

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