Have you ever worked really hard on a project and then when it was done you just couldn’t get off your lazy butt to do much of anything? Well, that’s where we’ve been for the past couple of weeks, on our lazy butts.
Bedding the Stanchions & Cleats
We did finally manage to get the stanchions bedded and the lifelines installed. The impetus for that was really so we could put up our awesome shade tarp. This summer has been brutally hot (every day this July was over 90 degrees and we had many days over 100 degrees) and we haven’t had any shade on the boat. Of course since the shade tarp has been up the weather has finally turned a little nicer. But it’s especially nice chilling in the shade on a warm day.
Teak
One thing that has taken a beating this summer is the teak. I usually put a coat of Star Brite Teak Oil and Sealer on twice a year. Well, last fall, when I should have put it on, we were installing the jib track and I couldn’t do it. So it suffered all winter (which was very wet). Then this spring we were working on the decks and I didn’t want to put the sealer on because the masking tape would not have stuck to it when we painted.
Last weekend I convinced Rich to help me clean the teak so I could seal it before winter. Because it had taken such a beating over the past year, we had to remove a lot of the old sealer. Usually I don’t have to do this; I can just clean the teak and reapply the sealer.
We used Star Brite’s Teak Restorer gel. It specifically says it removes their Teak Oil and Sealer, and it does…sort of. Luckily, we didn’t have to remove ALL of the old sealer. We put the gel on, let it sit for a few minutes, then scrubbed it with brushes and rinsed it off. We also had to use Star Brite’s Teak Brightener after the gel because the teak was looking pretty weathered. This week we’ll finish putting on the first coat and probably get the second coat on as well. Then it should be good to go for the winter.