We’d enjoyed an overnight trip to the River Medway with a stopover in Queenborough. It was our first of the year and we enjoyed sublime weather for it.

A few days later, we were out walking around our local woods partaking of ‘morning exercise’ when I casually said to Christobel, ‘You know the main cabin deck head has some bad areas…’

‘Yes…, she said with a long silence waiting to be filled.

‘Well, I think we should bite the bullet and do it,’ I added. It was left there for a few days. In the meantime and having done the repair area preparation work, we sanded and varnished (my job this bit) the cabin sides as the weather was bang on for it.

So, returning to that woodland discussion, the upshot was that we rearranged our schedule to get the hard part of the job done.

I’d tested my heat gun with a little generator we’ve had for years. All seemed well. but in reality, when it was made to work for more than a test, the generator didn’t like it. A larger unit was fortunately quickly borrowed and some 15% of the deck head paint was eventually ‘burnt’ off. Then it was down to the hard sanding and going through the grades.

Christobel cleaned up the mess and left me to deal with priming and painting the white between those varnished hatch top beams.

And there rests more to the tale: I also said, at some point, ‘we ought to do the cabin varnish work too…’ Christobel looked at me in horror!

The work was cracked on with over a few days until all the ‘dirty’ work was done. Christobel then carried out a rudimentary clean to remove the greater part of our mess. A final spring clean is to come!

At that point, assistance wasn’t going to be a lot of use for it would have been silly to get two people painting in a confined space – so it was over to me.

The weather during some of the days spent working was absolutely sublime – a sail though was out of the question with the main cabin’s ‘stuff’ piled on the forward bunks and floor boards!

I have always found the matt of the various proprietory internal varnishes too ‘dull’ for my liking. When built the boat has a sheen finish which was a yard mix of gloss and ‘whatever’ which has generally been matched by a Ronseal ‘yacht’ silk finish.

But, for this complete makeover I used a mix trialled on the underside of the forehatch which I did at home early in the winter ’21 lockdown.

The mix I came up with was essentially an easy 50/50 matt and gloss (Hempel). I kept it well mixed as I went along…

It has worked.

As I completed the last coat of paint on the deck head ‘bays’ between the varnished deck beams, the masking tape was stripped away revealing a pretty good job!

Next job – fit all the paraphernalia back!

The worst part of the job was clearing away ‘stuff’ (removals) and cleaning up debris and sanding dust, nothing new then. But it has been most worthwhile!

As the finishing touches were completed, we had plans to go away for a few days, the weather Gods are building up another windy week to kick us with, not looking likely…

Grrrrrrrrr………………