How many of you walk past moored craft in a harbour and DON’T look around at the craft around you?
I suspect, not many and like me you pass an eye over them, quizzically or otherwise.
The point I would like to make is that one sees an awful lot of craft, traditional especially, where a lot of work has been carried out. Varnishing for instance where the wood has been stripped back, sanded and varnish applied. Maybe two, three or even four coats. The applier (owner in the main) looks back with a satisfied smile and walks away, complimenting himself on a job well done.
Then, how often do you see ripped, badly fitting covers, or no cover at all over varnished wood?
P.S. Badly fitting covers was written about last autumn… See: http://nickardley.com/ditch-crawler-goes-west/
Whimbrel’s set of covers…
Yes, well!
With respect to varnish, yachting magazines go into the number of coats required on bare wood at great length, from time to time. My maxim rests at around eight to ten as a minimum … less means redoing the following season!
When there are a number of small areas stripped back it is easy to loose track – I’ve done it and following season found just a few coats on ‘an area’ forgotten about with a ‘peeling’ coating…
I pencil the coat number against areas stripped back up to ‘9’ here!
Cabin sides could be protected, of course, but it is an unusual sight in summer and is usually when a boat is under a winter cover. I have seen ‘all over’ covers though, and cabin side canvas protectors… Hatches and cockpits are a different matter. I leave Whimbrel’s hatch protection covers on from September to May. During autumn weekends away they get removed, for tidal sails, no.
Whimbrel’s hatch covers.
This one caught my eye recently…
Another well fitting cover…
So often an owner will expend huge effort in stripping, say a hatch, cabin sides and other areas such as rubbing strakes. Below are two examples of such efforts going to waste … in fact the work requires to be carried out all over again!
Both pictures make me sad…
The point about coating numbers is clearly made in the following example. The varnish or similar protective/decorative coating was applied and has not been re-applied at the intervals advised by coating manufacturer. net result – a mess!
Case of insufficient coats…
In the following example an owner has been busy applying additional coats of varnish to wood that had been stripped back. The vessel, a Finesse 24, had been for sale in a Swale-side yard for a number of years. During that time she’s been ashore, but fully covered. Wrapped to her waterline almost! I found her recently soon after her sale to her new owner.
The chap, a lovely Irishman, told me the previous owner had stripped down the cabin sides and sheerstrake some years ago. He’d clearly applied sufficient varnish, albeit she was covered – from memory the boat has been out of water for at least seven years. I learnt too that the old owner even gave the woodwork an additional coat as part of the ‘sale’ deal…
For Finesse aficionados, the boat, Quo Vadis, is staying local for time being…
The boat’s new owner has been adding further coats in between completing hull preps for painting. I received a message a few days ago saying full coats of undercoat were in hand…
A lot of work is involved with stripping back and prepping – here an owner kept his boat fully covered…
Oh, and to finish. I recently sailed into Faversham with my dear wife Christobel: we like going there, but essentially to pick up a new cover for Whimbrel’s mainsail. The new sails are bulkier than our old ones and have a greater covering need … so thank you Wilkinson Sails … my sketch was bang on and your interpretation fits like a glove!
A new sail cover that does what it is supposed to do…
Whimbrel’s tender, Twitch, is twenty-five years old this year … her woodwork has been regularly varnished and when not in use the dinghy is covered: she cost quite a lot of money and unprotected she would have long had her day…
Dinghies too need caring for!
My sincere apologies to the owners of the craft used to illustrate my blog … please take the hint!