Goodness March is certainly coming in like a lamb this year. A whole week of dry weather forecast. Perfect timing for my current project the restoration of a small cabin cruiser for the Irish inland waterways. She was bit tatty when she arrived in the yard a little bit of an ugly duckling. But her metamorphosis has begun and while it could be said that she’s lost some of her cute fluffy feathers she’s now very much like the signet that she is. Feathers out of place and your not really sure what colour she is.

I’m concentrating on the exterior at the moment but I’ve already re-enforced the cabin roof by bonding the exterior skin and interior t+g panelling with polyurethane foam. It really has stiffened up the once trampoline like deck. Now after stripping the deck right back to the original fiberglass I’m going to epoxy on some glass cloth to give a non-slip finish and hopefully get rid of the crazing caused by the deck cracking when it was flexible.

You can see in the photo above that whoever painted the boat previously didn’t even clean before painting. Oh well back to the sanding and more sanding before I even think about paint at least the Sun is shining. Pity it’s nasty nasty Fiberglass I’m sanding and not a lovely piece of sustainable ash or oak.