Weather windows

We painted with Interlux Perfection once before, years ago. At the time we said we would never do it again. It was torture, difficult, impossible to get rollers that weren't dissolved by it, stinky, toxic, and required such a fine set of conditions with a short re-coat window between when it can be touched and when it can be re-coated vs when you have to sand between coats that we had to take two days off of work to manage the minimum 2-3 coats.  Picture one shows what we were trying to fix -- cracks and circles -- cracks and circles everywhere.

Two and three show the fairing compound at the bow and from the cockpit.
































Picture four shows coat one applied and shiny as can be.  We had two cans of two part flattening agent we had purchased to reduce the gloss in the final coat.  The plan was to do one more full coat after this with the flattening agent, then tape off the non-skid and do a coat of that where we want non-skid texture.  Unfortunately there is a very small fine print section of the technical spec sheet for the flattening agent that says it reduces the mar resistance and wearability of the paint and is therefore NOT Recommended for outdoor use.  So that was 120.00 out the window.  A drop in the bucket but whatever.  So we waited until the evening and then put on the second coat, hoping the evening dew would settle onto the wet paint and take the gloss out (this is a thing, I promise).  It worked, but unfortunately we missed so many spots that we had like 80 percent matte and 20 percent gloss finish.  And a bird pooped on the wet paint too so that was a nice bonus texture surprise.

Instead of painting AGAIN (we were basically out of paint if we wanted to also manage the non-skid) we taped off anyway and slapped on a coat of non-skid.  My only concern at this point is that it might not be textured enough to prevent you from sliding.

Meanwhile I've been working on dinghy chaps for the dinghy. I used cheap dollar store clear shower curtains to make a patter.  I cut them to size, taped them together, marked them up with a sharpie, and then used the pieces to cut fabric.  They don't really hold up to close inspection and I'm not sure how they will do long term, but for a first attempt, I'm pretty happy with them.  (We put the dinghy in the water -- the suzuki started right up on last year's gas wow-- so here's hoping the velcro doesn't come undone and they don't float away altogether)







Here's a progress photo for the rebuild of the stern seat.  Matt disassembled it, cut off all the hardware from the back, epoxied it back together, and we just re-installed it.  The boat is starting to look like a boat!  Our main hold up is that Garhauer has our mainsheet traveller.  IDK when we will see it again.