Finally got some paint on

The weather was looking favourable this week for painting the tops of the cockpit benches with non slip deck paint, as the instructions recommend 3 or 4 days before walking on the newly applied paint I decided to do the job in two halves. I began by sanding the port side benches together with the aft cabin roof and the two areas under the spray hood and after washing down left the whole lot to dry.

The first thing Wednesday I gave all the areas a wipe down with a damp cloth to remove any dirt and left it all to dry in the bright sunshine. Once everything was dry I masked up the port benches and the two areas under the spray hood this took quite some time especially as all the corners required a radius to be cut in the masking tape I used a Stanley knife and cut round some new Jubilee clips as they were easily adjusted to the required radius. Once the masking was complete I applied a good coat of International deck paint using a brush to stipple it on and then while the paint was still wet I removed the masking tape.

Port side cockpit

Today I had planned to sand the starboard side cockpit benches and the various bits of gelcoat repair on that side so that I would be ready to mask up and paint on Monday however best laid plans and all that today dawned miserable, wet and foggy and remained so all day so I had to be content with pottering around inside, I removed the inboard folding leaf from the saloon table as it was not really a lot of use and always seemed to be in the way. I removed the fiddle rail and transferred it to the table top in the same way as I had previously treated the outboard side of the table. I spent the rest of the day having a bit of a clean up and thinking about various locker doors in the heads. saloon and aft cabin I am thinking of making them from the same solid laminate that I used for the worktops in these areas however to buy a piece large enough to do all the doors and a cutlery draws will leave quite a substantial piece left over so at the moment the jury is still out on this. I was just packing up for the day when I noticed this group of starlings on the rigging of a boat on the other side of the creek I am glad it's not my boat underneath them.

 It reminds me of the boys manning the mast at the Royal Navy training base at Shotley if you look closely there is a 'button' bird sitting on the masthead lamp.