Varnishing

I (Jon) finished these jobs variously on April 1st.

The varnish on both rail boards was cracking and peeling. Also, I had fully broken off a part of one of the whisker pole mounts that had started to crack. Finally, the outboard mount had a bunch of grinder marks all across it from when we needed to chop the bolts that stuck through. This had to be done to accommodate the new outboard engine we had bought in Tahiti, but I had done a poor job of grinding and chewed up a bunch of wood.

I coated all of them with six layers of Defthanes’s polyurethane, which is three more than recommended. One of the rail boards was newer, less than a year old, but the polyurethane on there was already wearing through, so I decided to just go well above a reasonable amount and I was able to do two coats a day.

I also made some additional wood pieces to mount at the ends of our old rail board where it was cracking from the u-bolts that held the board to the stanchions (check out these boat rentals ).

I’ve also started sanding the coamings, caprail, and handrails in preparation for varnishing them when I take the boat back to Brisbane in a couple of weeks. All of the easy areas are sanded and now I’m just hand sanding the hard to reach areas.