Good Old Boat Issue 142: Jan/Feb 2022

Toe-tallyWorth It

(top to bottom) Marissa and Chris walk the bendy cumaru planks down the dock. Known as “Brazilian teak,” the wood is rot-resistant and easy to work with. Chris clamps sections of the cumaru together to create the 32-inch-long scarf joint that would join them into one 42-foot bulwark.

Each L-bracket base had to be precisely drilled out to match the stanchion base to which it would be attached. Chris uses a Sharpie to mark the stanchion base’s outline on the L-bracket in preparation for marking and drilling.

Chris first applied a thin layer of US Composites medium epoxy hardener to the working surface. Working in 6-foot sections gave him just enough time to lay the fiberglass and work each piece into the edge with a fin roller to remove all the air bubbles, then be ready for the next layer as soon as I was done wetting it out. We continued this method for all 88 feet over the course of two days, taking three hours per side. Twenty-four hours after the glass had set, we lightly sanded using 80-grit on the orbital sander to remove the amine blush and any high spots before we began applying fairing compound. Using US Composites fairing filler and epoxy, we applied three rounds of fairing compound, sanding with our Flexisander long board with 80-grit between each application to ensure a smooth surface. Then, we rolled on a two-part epoxy barrier coat that we used on not only the bottom but the topsides as well, since as a cruising boat, the entire hull is subjected to being constantly wet and rolling in the swell. We used the barrier coat as blister protection as well as for its ultra-high- build primer characteristics that filled the small cracks, low spots, pinholes, and things we couldn’t see with the naked eye while fairing. This showed us where we needed to sand, fill, and fair more before continuing on to the Awlgrip primer for the topsides paint job. Slowly, Avocet began to look a bit less derelict, with the grey barrier paint hiding her once-fairing-compound-pink

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