This now means that we have a roof over the interior which means we can start cleaning the boat properly. We have cleaned several times but it soon gets covered in dust and debris from work above. The next stage for the deck is to fit the marine-grade plywood which will be glued and screwed into place before being sheathed in glass fibre matting. This closely matches the original deck structure, which was sheathed from new, as far as we can tell.
Other milestones achieved:
All the superstructure has been stripped back, sanded and given a few coats of Deks Olje to restore the finish and protect the wood. We have been given loads of advice on products to use and standards to achieve, and it all starts to get bewildering. We decided on an oiled finish for the external wood as it is easier to apply and keep maintained. We have also decided that we're not aiming to have a "show-boat" but rather a boat that will be our home, so the wood has not been brought back to perfection but bears the patina of 55 years of life. Having said that, Bridget has spent many, many hours scraping and sanding the teak superstructure and deck fittings - a very laborious job to say the least!
The hull has now been given two coats of primer/undercoat below the waterline and Bridget has started applying anti-foul coating - the first bit of 'colour' going back on:
One of the reasons we have embarked on this life-changing adventure is to tread more lightly on the planet. What has surprised us both is the amount and variety of extremely nasty chemicals involved in restoring and protecting boats. I know many of them are only being used as one-off jobs, but the environmental costs are not insignificant! This is the problem with trying to do the right thing - you can unpick every aspect of life and find fault - but we all must try and do the best we can.
Till next time................I look forward to standing here:
