For a while, I've been trying to decide how to handle the deck. Originally, the boat came with a plywood underlayment with a teak deck. The previous owners might have ben planning to re-do the teak decking but I couldn't justify spending that much money on this when a fiberglass deck would be less of a hassle and less likely to leak. The plywood decking thats there now is appox 3/8" or so. Which leaves about a 1/8" of a difference between the deck and the hieght of the hull sides. I had read in a few sources that the thing to do would have been to make up the diference with another layer of ply before fairing it and putting on the cloth. I started down this road last fall i think and had all the pieces cut and coated with epoxy. But then of course I read a few opinons the other way saying that a deck that think was unnessisray and overkill. It seemed that plenty of larger boats have a deck of 3/8ths with fiberglass that have been more that strong enough for decades so I decided to go that way. Even though I had prepped all the pieces to go, I still thought it better to have the thinner deck and save weight of all that wood and epoxy. The next thought was how to handle the differenece in hieght between the hull side and the deck. I considered shaving the sides down with a grinder but decided to use microballons in the west system to fair out a nice smooth camber from the cabin sides to the rails (not too flat that it wont drain out the scuppers), rather than the steeper grade it would have been.
So in the interest in doing things right the first time, I have been spending a lot of time fairing out that area from cabin sides to the rails so that its smooth and even from side to side. I had enough light to get most of the epoxy down I wanted to but ran out of warm weather, dry weather and sun light to think about laying any cloth.
Me, sanding some epoxy and running out of day light.....
(note the no longer needed blue dress sock being used as a dust bag)
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