Category Archives: Boat Details

Shades of Canvas

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We bring Kim from Masterpieces in Canvas back to finish up a few more sewing projects.  We ran out of time and could not finish these two big projects last season.  Kim met us in the Norsand Boatyard where she worked with Matt to determine exactly what he wants before making a pattern.

She brings a huge roll of pattern material and custom designs each window covering.  Some windows get 2 patterns.  We are making sauleda covers for storage (they will be solid gray fabric that are not see through).  We are also making black phifertex window covers that will be our “everyday” window shades.  They will let in a little light, allow us to see outside, but will block 80% of the sun.

We also asked Kim to make us (2) side phifertex canvas sun shades for our cockpit enclousure.   These will zip on to the outside of our existing side panels and can be rolled up for storage when not in use.  So we can alternate between using the sun shade (phifertex) or the rain shade (sauleda/Isinglass) without having to change them out.

In the bottom photo, Kim is marking the snaps on the sauleda canvas window covers.  We will use these when we put the boat up for storage or when we are feeling particularly shy.  The yellow tape around the foward window is from a paint job that Matt was working on and will be removed.

And the final phifertex window covers.  We decided to go with two different grades.  The two side windows on both port and starboard are 90% opacity and the three forward windows are 80% opacity.  This will allow us to better see out the windows while the shades are on.

Sewing Projects By Us

In 2018, Matt and I made blue fender covers for our big round A4s and pencil type F4s.  See blog post dressing up our Fenders. 

Over the years the blue faded and frayed so it was time to replace them again.  Last season, March 2023 I replaced the A4 fender covers with black covers.  But that left the F4 (pencil) fenders ugly and blue.

So, it was time to replace them with beautiful black polar felt.  They should match better to our new gray color scheme and be soft on the boat.

New Line

We also purchased new line for the boat.  We bought 34m of a beautiful gray (with black/white flecks) in double braid heavy duty line for our main sheets, and 100m green mottled line with a dynema core for our spin halyard and reefing line.  While we were at it we replaced our red “oh $hit” line that we use to hold on while under way and bought 100m of 5mm dynema line for future projects.  Everything came from Nautilus Braids which provides the best customer service, quality lines, at reasonable pricess.  They custom made our lines for us!

By the way, there are no ropes on board a boat.  You will find lines, sheets, halyards, vangs, tricing lines, warps, whips, and jackstays, but not ropes.  

We will have Kim come back in early March to help us finish some really small projects:

  • Stern seat cushions over the line holders
  • (2) Line bags for our main sheets
  • (2) Recycling bags
  • (1) Remote wench holder
  • (2) Sets of 3 pockets for cockpit
  • (1) Table cover

Don’t worry, there still are a dozen other sewing projects for us to tackle with our Sailrite machine.

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events. This blog post occured in mid-November.  We attack some beastly boat projects while on the hard at Norsand Boatyard.

Varnish, Varnish, Varnish

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Varnish is a very repetitive process and it requires a LOT of patience which I have very little of.  These projects try my very last bit of sanity, but I got it all done over several weeks.  Over the years, we have put oil and stain on our exterior teak wood.  We have teak on our 2 cockpit hatches, 6 steps on the sugar scoops, hand rails along the cabin top, rails on all 4 sides of the bimini, 2 princess seats, and 8 pieces in the cockpit.  Lots of teak.   If you are a cruiser, you will notice I did not mention the teak toe rail as there is no way in he!! I will touch those.

Matt has wanted to varnish the wood for a long time and every time I go to stain or oil any of the teak he complains.  So, I finally agree to try my hand at varnishing.

Varnish / Awl Wood

We have talked about varnishing some of our teak pieces for years.  But varnishing is time consuming and takes a lot of patience (which I don’t have).  Now that we are in the yard and we removed the bimini hand rail and the cabin top hand rails we’ve decided it was time to give it a whirl.

Project 1 of 3 Varnishing  Projects are the (2) hand rails that run along our cabin top (about 12′ or 3.5m), (2) aft bimini rails and a flag pole.

Sanding, Sanding, and More Sanding

The first step is sanding several times with 80 grit then sanding several more times until all of the old stain and groves are gone.  Then you follow it up with more sanding using 120 grit sand paper which smoothes the surface further.   

Removal of All Dust Particles 

Then I wipe everything down with MEK (some heavy duty nasty stuff to remove the dust particles).

Primer

Next step I apply Awl Grip / Awl Wood Primer.  The yard informed me that I should be using a new bucket and brush for each step and each coat, so I did (seems wasteful). 

The primer goes on smoothly and turns the wood a rich, beautiful color.  This is a clear primer so we were surprised at how dark it made the wood.  Can you see the long cabin hand rails hanging from the metal boat support?

Applying Awlwood Gloss

Once the primer was dry (24hrs) I applied the first coat of Awlwood gloss.  You can either apply one coat each 24hrs and then sand down, apply MEK, then apply 2nd coat or you can try multi coating in a single day.  Guess which one I tried — multi-coating (lack of patience, remember).  I was only able to apply 2 coats in the first day.  So, the next day I had to hand sand each piece with 320 grit paper before starting the next 3 coats.

Once these dry for 24 hours I sanded them all again with 600 grit paper and put on the final 6th coat.

Project 2: More Varnishing

I also varnished the (2) cockpit handholds, two teak hatch frames, and the teak on both helm seats.  There were years of layers of stain on these pieces of wood.  I would do a light sanding before staining, but they had not been taken down to the raw wood in ages.

And now they are beautiful and shiny.  For some reason the wood looks more red than it is in realy life.  The wood color is more like the lower left photo.

You’ve Got to Be Kidding?

One day after Matt installed our beautiful new varnished hand rails along the cabin top, I stop to take a photo and notice something horrible!  The teak around the sides and front of the bimini are simply awful looking with old stain.  And on top of that the small teak rail along the cabin top (just below it) looked crappy too.  And since I had the varnish out again, we decided to do the two princess seats and the teak backing to our wench handle holders.  Great, varnish project #3!  Keep in mind it started out with one piece and now has blossomed into 18 pieces!

The teak rail along the bimini top can’t be removed (unlike the aft portion of the rail) so it makes it very difficult to sand.  Most of it has to be done by hand.  This is the same case for the rail along the cabin top.  This project has truly destroyed my hands, nails, and back!  I am upside down a lot trying to get the pieces that are seen from the cockpit.  

I was so irritated that I started sanding without taking any before photos, but trust me the wood needed either stain or varnish.

Sanding

Man oh man this was difficult to sand these pieces.  Most of the trim was near our non-skid (which really hurts the hands when you hit it), gelcoat which scratches easily from the sand paper, a metal rail (painful on the hands) and or screws, bolts, knobs.  You can see from the top photo that the bimini rail and the small rail below it had to be varnished to match the beautiful hand rails along the cabin top.

The two princess seats really need new teak but it is not in the cards yet.  Maybe when we get to Indonesia.  So, we sand down the old stain and do our best to make these seats look better.  Here is the raw wood.

Back to the Process

A good swipe of MEK is applied to remove all dust particles and anything that might muck up the varnish.  Primer is applied and then 24hrs later the varnish process begins.  Awlgrip’s product Awlwood allows you to either multi-coat or apply one coat every 24hrs with a sanding in between coats.  I couldn’t possibly sand 6 more times. So I decided to try multi-coating again which only requires 2 more sanding sessions.

The end product came out nice, not my favorite and certainly not my best work, but it will do for now.  I am not a varnish person. I don’t like doing it and I am not a fan of the end result.  But Matt likes it so there is that.  Just not sure who will redo all of this in 5 years when it starts to look ratty???

The front section that is flat was fairly easy to do despite the non-skid and gel coat issues.  But the insde was tricky with the rails, the ledges, the uneven surfaces.  You see this from the inside of the cockpit (bottom right photo).  This kept getting loads of bubbles which required more sanding.  Truly a beastly job.

After what seemed like months of sanding and varnishing (it reality it was weeks), everything has been varnished (except the toe rails).  

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  This blog occured in early December while we were on the hard in Norsand Boatyard.  Don’t miss out on some of the beastly projects we got completed in the yard in our last blog post.

Beastly Boat Projects Part II

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We conquer lots of boat projects while we are in the yard at Norsand Boat yard.  Some we hire contractors and some we do ourselves.  Be sure to read Beastly Boat Projects Part I.   Since we had so many boat projects to complete we had to break it up into two blog posts.  Here is Part II.

Heaters

Did you know that Sugar Shack came equipped with heaters?  We don’t have a generator or AC, but we do have heaters.  The problem is that they stopped working. Starboard never really worked and port gave out last season while we were in NZ.  This is our old heating component inside the engine room.  

We had (2) new heating systems sent to us while we were in Fiji and they needed to be installed now that we are in chilly NZ (even though it is summer time we are cold).

We purchased (2) Eberspacher Hydronic M-II systems that are 12voilt, D10W, 86W from Heatso in the US.  Matt installed them and they are a thing of beauty!  Wow what a difference they make inside.  Warm and dry.  Our new heating component and dehumidifier!  We will be going to some countries with high humidity and these units will come in very handy!

The Boat projects continue and both Matt and I are working hard along side our contractors.

The Beastly Anchor Chain

I love our 10mm stainless steel anchor chain.  It is long, shiny, self folding and really strong!  We mark our chain every 10m with a coated webbing from strapworks.com.  The straps that were in the chain were old, ratty looking, and difficult to see from the deck so I wanted to replace them.  I drop all 100m (over 300′) onto the ground and prepare it for cleaning and new straps.

It took several tools to extract the old webbing from each link and a good set of needle nose pliers to help me pull the new stiff webbing through each link.  Then I used ospho to clean up the chain and she looked like new!

Dinghy Repair

We loved our Avon dinghy, but the pontoons were dead and needed to be replaced.  We decided to buy a Highfield 3.6 CL which we regretted. In retrospect, we should have just replaced our pontoons and kept our last dinghy as they just don’t make them that good anymore.

Our dinghy was used for a month before the non-skid (EVA) started coming up.  We were so mad.  We had lots of communications with All Marine the company that sold us the dinghy and the manufacturer.  In the end, after much negotiating and me being a brat, the manufacturer agreed to replace the non-skid at no charge.  New Zealand has a Consumer Guarantee Act which guarantees products have to be replaced or repaired within one year of purchase. I love it!  This is regardless of the actual manufacturer guarantee.  So, they repaired it at no cost to us after I reminded them of this act!

Inverter Charger 12v

Being in New Zealand made us realize that we needed a 220 inverter charger.  We have a 110v inverter charger and we have a 220 charger but it does not invert.  So, we bring our friend Matthew Duckett from Cleigh Ltd. to help Matt install it.

New Mirrors 

This is not one of the “beastly” boat projects but it drove me to beastly states every morning I looked into the mirror.  Our medicine cabinet has pretty damaged mirrors and old rusty hinges.  They are double sided which is super cool but evidently really expensive to replace. So we decide to go with single sided mirrors with a mirror vinyl finish for the inside.

I know it is a small thing but I just love the new mirrors.  We hope to find the hinges in stainless steel as I am not a fan of the mat black, but other than that they are much better.

 

After weeks of being on the hard and working on dozens of beastly boat projects, here are a few photos of sunset on the hard.

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  This blog post occured during our stay a Norsand Boatyard, 7 Nov-22 Dec. Stay tuned out if we are getting kicked out of New Zealand.  Coming up next we share our visa issues.