These old boats have a lot of teak trim. Someone took absolutely no time to take care of ours. Mud-brown Cetol has been slathered all over the place. The one benefit of the old Cetol is it’s so thick it covers all the nicks, gouges and holes. That’s right, I found some holes that were totally invisible until I removed the Cetol.
2014 was the “Summer of Scraping” which turned into the “Fall of Forgotten Projects” and the “Winter of My Discontent” (with myself for not finishing the teak project). But it was the dawn of a new day in 2015 when I decided to complete the blasted teak project once and for all (well, not really, because there is constant maintenance with teak).
After everything was scraped free of Cetol and sanded, Rich repaired the dings, bungs, and gouges. Then we sat on our hands wondering what to use on the teak. We decided on Cetol Natural with the Gloss coat over the top. Rich applied it to the boom gallows and the companionway hatch. It looked ok but was a pain to apply because we could only do one coat a day and it felt tacky for weeks.
Back to Googling teak treatments where I stumbled on a Pacific Seacraft blog where they described using Star Brite Teak Oil and Sealer. They had used Cetol first and it promptly went to shit in the brutal Mexico sun so they had to scrape it all off. They claimed the Star Brite Teak Oil and Sealer was easy to apply. It lasted about six months in the tropics. And best of all, it never needs to be scraped off. If we didn’t like it, we could either let it fade away over several months, or we could use a teak cleaner to remove it. No scraping? Sold!
We started to apply the teak oil and sealer using small foam brushes. Some of the small trim on the cabin top was hard to cut in so we masked off part of it. Plus a little masking in the cockpit, but that was the only masking we had to do. It took Rich and me about two hours to put the first coat on the entire boat. We thought about applying a second coat but decided to wait to see how long this stuff lasted.
At the end of the summer it was still holding up fine. I put another two coats on everything in time for the winter weather. I had to clean the teak, let it dry then apply the sealer. Start to finish took me about six hours. So far it has held up great. Water beads off nicely. The only complaint is where we step on the toe rail gets a bit grimy and when I scrub it some of the sealer comes off so I have to apply a thin coat on that area periodically.
It took about two pints and six foam brushes to do the first coat and less than a pint to do the second two coats. Application and cleanup is a breeze (I just throw the foam brushes out). I really dig this stuff.
The sea hood is a cover over the companionway hatch that’s permanently affixed to the cabin top. It’s sometimes called a turtle or sea turtle because it acts as the shell and the hatch slides in and out like a turtle’s head. Its purpose is to protect the gap between the cabin top and the hatch and prevents water from getting inside.
Our original sea hood was basically a teak box. It was a lot bigger than it needed to be and it leaked where it was affixed to the cabin top. When we decided to change the original traveler arch, we realized the sea hood would be too big to fit under the new arch. So Rich decided to fabricate a new one out of fiberglass and polyester resin.
He made a mold out of plywood, then laid in four layers of woven cloth, and three layers of random strand mat. After it cured for a day or two we popped it out of the mold. It looked nice but felt a little flimsy on the top. Rich stood on it and it would hold his weight but it sagged quite a bit. To fix this Rich epoxied and screwed some teak strips across the top and covered them with a layer 3″ and 4″ fiberglass. We also added a tapered flange at the aft edge for the future mounting of the dodger hardware.
After a little fairing with thickened epoxy and lots of sanding Rich used Interlux Epoxy Primkote, Interlux Perfection and Interlux InterGrip for the non-skid. Finally, we drilled holes through the outer flange for the bolts that would affix it to the cabin top.
Our boat came with virtually NO canvas. No dodger, nothing to protect any of the teak. It did have a hideous brown mainsail cover that was thin and falling apart and an ill-fitting interior cover for the forward hatch. The mainsail cover hung on for a couple of years, but finally disintegrated Spring 2017 so we took the mainsail completely off the boat.
In 2020 we had a local canvas guy come out to the boat to talk about a bunch of canvas we wanted to get. We decided to have him start with the helm cover and if we liked it we would have him do our dodger. He took the old and tattered helm cover to use as a pattern. When he returned to the boat a couple of weeks later (!) the helm cover he made didn’t fit. He left and we never heard from him again and he never returned our old helm cover.
So that summer we bought a Sailrite LSZ-1 Plus sewing maching. I sewed when I was younger under the watchful eye of my grandmother, but I’d never done anything on my own. Luckily, Sailrite has a great YouTube channel with everything you need to know to start sewing.
I started with our helm cover, then made a canvas tarp to cover the cockpit in winter (we still didn’t have a dodger). Them some cockpit cushions, interior upholstery and a staysail bag.
I didn’t make a mailsail cover. We decided to get a Mack Pack from Mack Sails. It’s a semi-automatic mailsail cover with lazy-jacks. But when it wears out I now have a pattern I can copy.
Our plan was to get an Iverson Dodger, but after a lot of back and forth on the phone with them we decided it wasn’t worth the extra $1,000 they were going to charge us because we’re too far from the Bay Area (we’re about 57 miles from Alameda). We still don’t have a dodger, but it’s high on the priority list before we go. If we don’t have a dodger before we head to the Bay Area on our way south we might still be able to make the Iverson Dodger work (and save ourselves an EXTRA $1,000).
In 2022 we traveled to Richmond to have Compass Canvas build our dodger. We wanted something sturdy and low profile. We really hate those dodgers that stick up too high. We have a boom gallows and it seems a lot of boat with a boom gallows put the dodger straight up to it. I looks weird. So ours is a little lower, but when standing at the helm you can just see over the top.
I made a few covers for our winches as well. The problem with covering everything in canvas is you have to stow it when you’re sailing.
We used to have two awnings from Shadetree that cover nearly the whole boat and have tons of headroom so we didn’t have to crouch. They were great for the summer heat. Sadly, they were in the shed when it burned to the ground.
I sewed a shade tarp for the foredeck in 2022. I used shade/privacy fence material with flag tape for the edges. We hang it with some small line running through grommets.
The first staysail bag I made was also lost in the shed fire along with our staysail. So I had to remake a foredeck staysail bag.
I’ve also sewn some bags for our jibsheets, a little rain fly for one of our portlights, and various pockets for the inside and outside of the boat.
In 2014 we bought a used 11’2″ Achilles dinghy and 9.9 HP Honda motor off Craig’s List. The dinghy has had a few leaks we’ve patched, but overall it’s worked great. The Honda is great, so reliable. We’re going to eventually get a smaller dinghy because this one is just too big to fit on the boat. The Honda we’ll probably keep.
We sold the Achilles and Honda and bought a Highfield Classic 260 from Boat Specialists in Richmond. It’s only 8’6″ long and just fits over our dorade boxes aft of the staysail stay. It’s has an aluminum hull and weighs 119 lbs. It has a nice bow locker that holds the fuel tank and anchor. The fuel line runs along the bottom inside the bilge. It’s so much smaller than the old Achilles, but it’s the only size that will fit.
We used the Honda on the Highfield once and knew right away it was too heavy for it. It felt like the bow was pointing straight up. Luckily, the salesman from Boat Specialists had a 1997 Mercury 9.9 two-stroke he offered to sell us. New two-strokes were banned in the US in 2011 and they can be hard to find. The Mercury weighs about 30 pounds less than the Honda and feels a lot better on the smaller Highfield.
Sometime before we bought the boat we had already decided on the name. Our reasons on the name are here. Shortly after we bought the boat we bought the lettering from Boat US. A year or two later, we finally put the name on. Rich and I, along with the buffer, various bonnets and buffing compounds, climbed in the dinghy and went to work trying to get the hull prepped. We started with an aggressive rubbing compound and a wool bonnet in a 4’x4′ area where the name was to go. After the rubbing compound we used a polish and a different wool bonnet.
After both sides were nice and shiny we applied the stickers. The directions looked simple – “Peel off backing paper, align to desired location, stick in place and pull off the top paper liner.” Where we went wrong, we think, was in ordering them a year or more before we used them. The backing paper wouldn’t come off. We ended up having to pick the edges with a knife then slowly pull the backing paper off. There was a lot of frustration with air bubbles, a little torn vinyl, and lots of squeegee-ing. After about two hours we had the name and hailing port safely adhered to both sides of the hull.
After a few years the old lettering was starting to look tattered. So we ordered new lettering and while in the boat yard got the name back on the boat. The font is different because we couldn’t find the old font anywhere.
