Navigation lights

Last weekend I finished off the navigation lights ready to install on Monday then Saturday afternoon turned out to be dry so I went down to the boatyard and masked up both boot line stripes on the transom and gave them the first coat of Toplac together with the lower stripe along the sides of the boat which I had previously masked up and primed. Sunday afternoon turned out much the same so I again went down to the yard and put a second coat on the stripes along the sides and across the transom and then removed the masking tape that's the advantage off having the boat in a yard only ten minutes drive away from home it is feasible to nip down and knock small jobs off the to do list.

Rear of port navigation light with watertight connection box fitted

On Monday I started by fitting the port and starboard navigation lights to the pulpit and after connecting them up low and behold there was light which could be seen for miles well two actually according to the markings on the fittings.

Port

Starboard

Port rear view

The next stage was fitting the mounting pad on the transom for the stern light the hole was cut out to clear a rectangular protrusion on the back face of the fitting.

Mounting pad for stern light

Two holes were drilled through the transom to take the cables and the light fitting was bolted through the pad and transom and after connecting the cables together again there was light, also note the completed boot stripes in the photograph below.

Stern light

New Morning has a moulded cove line which incorporates a flower at the forward end which I assume is the signature of the designer Angus Primrose. This cove line had been coloured with a gold coloured tape which was beginning to peel off in a few places so I decided to remove it and then paint the cove line with Mauritius Blue Toplac to match the rest of the hull detail. However after scraping at the peeling areas the rest remained firmly stuck as the proverbial, the usual way of removing this stuff is to use a hot air gun but two problems here I don't have one and in any case we still have no electricity supply so I spent Wednesday and today scraping and sanding the stuff I have got almost three quarters of it off I found that the rounded end of an old hacksaw blade was just ab out right for removing the majority followed by coarse sandpaper wrapped round a piece of round steel bar. I have some chewing gum remover which I got to remove the old glazing sealant in the fore hatch which I will experiment with on Monday to see if it makes the job any easier

Original cove line

The white patches are not where the tape has started peeling unfortunately, its white paint where I had been patch painting the topsides as I intended to remove the cove line I was not so fussy where the roller went.

After scraping and sanding the cove line.