Outfitting11

Outfitting: Varnishing.

Even with maintenance coats in the tropics, the Cetol on the caprail was shot. The same applied to the varnish in the cockpit, Equatorial sun is brutal. interestingly, the paint on the eyebrows and grab rails was fine (Pettit Easypoxy “Brightwork Brown”). We removed the varnish and Cetol with a heat gun. The only hard part about that was working around all the fittings and deckwork on or near the caprail. The heat gun leaves a very clean surface with only light sanding necessary before re-coating.

“No one likes an ugly boat, no matter how cheap or fast.”

— Roger Duncan

Removing Cetol from the caprail. The cardboard box catches shavings. The wood sheet protects the fiberglass from the heat gun.

Port side done. It took me 1/4 of it to figure it out: use a good sharp scraper, scrape with the grain and don’t get the wood too hot (it will burn).

In Long Beach the caprail was dinged by the dock box when a strong surge affected the marina for three days while we were away.

Using West System epoxy and filler, we repaired the ding. Now we need to sand and clean the rest of the caprail before varnishing.

After three coats of Cetol Natural Teak. We will rub down and add a maintenance coat in six months.

We did not apply a coat of Cetol Gloss, as some recommend, because we did not want the caprail to be too slick.

We added stainless steel rubbing strakes in high wear areas like at the boarding gates.