We’ve closed out yet another season on the hard.

Once again I have to thank the universe for the boatyard where we both found and currently house the Compass.  For almost eight months we’ve taken over quite a large patch of asphalt there, and they still treat us like family.

Epifanes Rubbed Effect on the salon table.

During the spring, we settled on a matte top coat for all of our interior wood.  We applied Epifanes Rubbed Effect on most large surfaces, and it worked out pretty well. At first we were using Epifanes Rapidclear for the build coats, but then we heard that West Marine’s WoodPro was a rebadged version of the exact same product.  We haven’t attempted to confirm this, but we suspect it’s true.  Both go on with extreme ease, and sand well for the finish coats.  We’ve had no adhesion issues so far, no peeling when sanding or weird shine-through.  While it’s been a lot of work, it’s been a relatively simple, satisfying project.  And the Rubbed Effect top coat is a pretty nice matte.  I mean, it looks nice, doesn’t it?  Too bad we won’t be using it anymore.  I haven’t chronicled the galley refinish project yet, but I’ll give away one part of the story here:  Epifanes must have had a labeling problem for a while, because we wasted about six hours applying, sanding, reapplying from a new can, and again sanding some sort of gloss varnish that was living in Epifanes Rubbed Effect cans.  Our local West Marine was good enough to take both cans (which had different batch numbers on the bottom) back for a refund.  In the post about the galley, I’ll be writing to you about how much we now love the finish of Interlux Goldspar Satin.  Heh!  At least we’re trying a little bit of everything.

Charlie performing the initial sanding of my very thick application of filler.

Have I mentioned that the yard we’re at is awesome?  Now some of you lucky salts may be wondering what the big deal is.  Maybe you live up north and get to haul out every winter in a yard that lets you do all of your own work.  We’ve been there, too, but here in Florida, things are quite different.  Self-service yards are few and far between, and once you find one, expect to dole out big bucks if you’re staying more than a day.  We’ve been on the hard almost eight months, and you haven’t seen me cry over money (yet).  Yes, I know how lucky we’ve been.

Before the barrier coat went on the Compass, management at the yard gave us a few days to fill and fair the bottom of our boat.  As with most things on the Compass, we got very lucky with the bottom.  The bottom was in good shape, and everything we did was either preventative or cosmetic.  We started out using epoxy and filler we mixed from ingredients we purchased from Fiberglass Coatings here in St. Petersburg.  This was fine, but we were having a hard time maintaining consistency, so we switched to a two part 3M marine filler.  First we machine sanded, then we finished off with hand sanding.  This little bit of extra effort got us a very nice, fair bottom, if I do so say myself.  We’re not experts by a long shot, but we’re always willing to learn new tricks in order to get the best possible result.

Ultramar.  Now I realize it’d be pretty ironic for a sailboat.

Charlie and I haven’t named the boat yet, and I have a feeling that when we do finally agree on something, it’s going to be pretty darn generic.  He and I have different ideas about what makes a good boat name.  I think it should be something personal – something that tells everyone a little bit about us.  Charlie thinks it should have more to do with the boat, and prefers Afrikaans names.  While we were doing the bottom, I came up with what I thought would be a great, and by great I mean extraordinarily generic, name for the boat.  Both Charlie and his dad liked the name, and I was feeling pretty cool.  Too bad Ultramar is the name of a Canadian gas station.  Live and learn.

So, those are some of the highlights of our spring on the hard.  Take a peek at the photo album Ive thrown together for a closer look, including pictures of our never before seen aft head, me, under a table, and our nav station … naked.  Oooooh.  Saucy.