With the fair weather experienced in Essex at least, I was able to begin dealing with repairs to Whimbrel’s varnish work. Repairs were only needed to areas of cabin side beadings.

The flat surfaces have stood up to the winter very well and continue to look good. So, overall, I have been happy with my new coatings of Le Tonkinois varnish, first applied after our complete stripping off of forty years of coatings of urethane.

Although the autumn and winter in the Essex area has not been as wet as elsewhere, it has been damp with many overcast days, this is damaging to varnish and areas suffered.

The dry weather allowed day after day coats and visit by visit sections were nearing completion as final repair areas were hit.

Before I started I had ordered a batch of varnish from a different source from my usual supplier (UK distributor), but for unknown reasons I could not elicit a reply.

When the batch arrived it looked different. But that is another story. I ultimately obtained a batch from the normal UK supplier. The batch looked normal.

The cockpit is being over coated this season but beforehand a few areas of repairs were needed. I had done some of this way back last September and have already recoated the cockpit seats. If the weather continues along a fair path, I’ll have this done too.

On the final day of March we got ourselves over to the boat and got cracking, sanding, wiping and varnishing.

We sanded with 180 followed by 260 grade before brushing down and water wiping with a touch of degreasing gloop (sugar soap) in it.

Christobel had a break during the varnishing process for she ‘cannot’ do it!

We can’t remember getting this far ahead with full overcoating of the cabin sides.

Next job: cockpit overcoating…