Feeling moist?

Its quite incredible, the boat's bottom has been exposed to the atmosphere for a little over three weeks and already the moisture figures have dropped considerably.

In certain areas around the boat the wetted area now reads the same as the topsides, where it still maxes out the meter is mainly around the keel stub areas and the very bottom of the hull, this is to be expected until i can get heat into the hull.

i have hot washed it once over the weekend and is in the process of drying back , interestingly lots of little dark spots no bigger than a two pence piece have started appearing randomly on the hull with water weeping from them.

i guess now its a case of continuing the drying process and observing the meter readings , i will post pictures next weekend.

cheers roger

The big strip.

Solway Cloud's bottom is no more, it was over pretty quickly by all accounts and not nearly as expensive as i thought. Shame i took so long to decide on this course of action really, mind you hindsight is 20:20.

Enjoy the pictures.

Happy New Year.

Well it has been a while (yet again) and i have done precisely sod all for the last couple months due in no small part to the weather, so bored stupid over the holidays i bought an electric compass planer in an attempt to do my own gel-strip.

The results were a bit crap to tell you the truth and although slightly dis-heartened i'm glad i exhausted all avenues before seeking professional help.

The basic problem with my boat as with alot of Westerly's of this era is the thickness of the gel coat, i was going through a pair of planer knives every dozen-or-so passes. Time was another factor as to clean a patch roughly two foot square took an entire day.......defeat wasn't far off.

Keels again........

Have spent the last couple of weeks finishing the port keel: much filling and fairing -be it at a snails pace due to the air temperatures, my attention has turned to the stubs and especially the rotten starboard one.

I started removing the gel coat the length of the stub and then around the three stud locations that are cracked i removed all the dead laminate, to get to solid, so much so that i'm almost through to the inside of the boat via the keel stub.

In some places i am almost through to the inside (4mm thick), of which the whole experience has been a bit daunting, but i've come this far, so i guess the next step is to get hold of a moisture meter and take some readings and go from there.

.........you're back in the room in 3...2...1

Its been awhile since i last posted as i have been super busy getting the hull stripped and cut back with an eye to prepping the boat for paint in the new year...oh and having to work for a living too........pain in the arse!

Anyway since i last posted all the cockpit joinery has gone; it has all been removed along with the skin from my fingertips as well (bloody sandpaper) and all the skin fittings and cleats.

I then measured the boottop line and recorded that in my note pad then set about removing it from the hull as i did with the gunwale stripe too, with 240/320 wet and dry.

Now this wouldn't be a problem if there wasn't forty years worth of paint on it, so after much cursing and successive trips to the workshop i eventually ended up getting out the big guns (namely a huge roll of 40 grit sandpaper) and used this combined with some water sprayed on the hull and paper too.

It came off a treat and the boat looks quite naked with nothing on it, so with that job ticked off its now time to get on with the keel stub repair work (after letting skin grow back onto my hands!)

Time to strip!

I'm now down to the final few pieces of hardware that need removing from the deck to get the hull and deck prepped for painting.

One problem was how to remove the the rigging eyes mounted in the deck, one to port was encapsulated the other hidden behind a 'formica' panel so after much cutting and swearing the port one came away, to starboard prompted me to remove the galley module.

The main reason being i have always had designs on making a better galley for the boat to encompass a few modern conveniences and also so i can carry out the reinforcing work on the keel stub more proficiently.

Having wrestled the panels off i was left with galley module which i duly marked along lines in the moulding to aid accuracy and also to provide a way of fitting the new module to the dimensions of the old.

It came away after a bit of a fight to be left with a rather large gap.

Now onwards to the rest of the hardware, next being removal of the pushpit requiring access to the lazerette, time for the jigsaw and grinder again.............................

A right good decking.

Having trawled the owners forum for some magical answer to removing 40 years of non-slip paint it became apparent there was no magic tool or technique available and so was resigned to spending a large part of my life and using countless roles of 40 grit sandpaper removing the old paint.

Seeing myself resembling the Monty Python 'Its' character waist deep in used sandpaper wasn't really an option as

a) i'm impatient by nature and
b) i'm working all next week , so i need to get a lick on.

For some reason the sandblaster wasn't upto the task, in return for removing a piece of non-slip no bigger than my hand it duly emptied 25kg of sand all over the foredeck......... sod that, my breathings only just got back to normal from stripping the hull.

Time for a re-think, so after much surfing i concluded either a grinding cup or a ferociously abrasive pad both of which attach to my 4" grinder. Having returned from purchasing said items it was time to try them both, first up the grinding cup which essentially is a diamond cutter you can use in a grinder.

This 'ploughed' through the non-slip..........and also a significant part of the cabin roof, next it was the turn of a 20 grit abrasive disc. This proved just as 'efficient' at destroying the cabin top but was eminently more controllable.

As you can see from the pictures (like me in 'speedos') it is not pretty but weighing up how long it would take to sand the non-slip off i feel it will be less time consuming to cut all the paint from the cabin top and decks then fill and fair with 404 / 407 fillers.

Of course I could live to regret this decision.