Cabin Top Paint ~

I'm in the middle of painting the boat right now.  

Well, not actually at this moment.  What I mean is that nearly half the boat has been painted so far.  

The previous owner had the hull sides and bottom of the boat painted back in January of 2011. So the only area really needing paint is the topsides. The cabin top, cap rails and gunwales, cockpit lazarettes and nonskid decks are the areas I'm focused on now. 

Where o where to start...?


This is a shot of my broker and friend Randy Hinely on the helm as we sail across the Gulf of Mexico on delivery home to Niceville.

You can see the areas of concern in the cabin top bulkhead.  The duct tape is covering an old portlight that had been removed.  Also the engine gauges were mounted in this same bulkhead area.  It reminded me of a oversized cars dashboard... not very nautical.

Plans to change these things began immediately underway. 

 Another shot of us sailing back across the Gulf of Mexico.
Here you can see the ugly yellow plastic covering the portlight holes. It was very brittle and would crack if touched.

A shot of the starboard side deck. The weathered teak is asking for some attention as well.

After throughly cleaning and inspecting the topsides, I decided to remove the teak eyebrow trim that wraps around the cabin top. It was badly cracked in spots and needed to be stripped.

After removing the eyebrow trim rail I exposed many screw holes which needed filling and faring.

Trim screw holes counterbored and ready for epoxy filling.

At this point it was apparent that the teak hand rails would need to be removed as well.  Unfortunately they were leaking into the cabin top a little, and need to be re-bedded after painting.

  The deck looks super clean with everything removed.  Now time to remove those big windows.

Quite a mess we've got here. The windows were leaking pretty bad. You can see the amount of crud that collected inside the window frame.




Another main area of concern was the cabin top bulkheads in the cockpit. I still had those old holes from the gauges and the old portlight. 

My idea was to fill the holes with wood and fiberglass them over. 

This is a view from inside the cabin looking aft at the bulkhead. You can see the wood plugs glassed in place.  I spent much more time glassing the exterior surface of this bulkhead to get it smooth and fare. Somehow I dont seem to have many pictures of that step.

This is where the eyebrow trim rail ended near the cockpit.  The big main cabin windows are held in with blue masking tape.

Next I removed the main hatch covering the companion way.

Its built of teak and very strong, however it had leaks coming through the seams.


Companion way hatch completely removed and ready to repair.

All of this area will need to be painted with the cabin top.

There was an enormous amount of prep work that went into painting just the cabin top section of this boat. Many hours spent filling and faring, sanding and sanding. then filling and faring some more, sanding, sanding, etc, etc....

I did the majority of this section by myself.  I could have spent another season trying to get everything prepped out perfectly, luckily I have Dennis Mayhew to remind me of one important thing... Its a boat, not a church. Just paint it.

Thanks Dennis for helping me keep things fairly simple.

 Primer ~ Port side

Primer ~ Starboard side

Primer ~ Starboard side looking aft

Paint~ Starboard side

Looking good during the Single handers race ~ October 2012 ~ BBSC 

New cabin top paint shining in the sunset ~


Once again, its feels good to look back at another project completed. I'm always amazed at how great this boat looks after finishing projects like this. She is a great boat with classic lines, and steps like this really help to show that about her. 

I've toyed with the idea of leaving off the handrails to keep that clean look on deck, however she wont be a dock queen forever. 

"You're gonna need those handrails one day when those Abaco seas come crashing on deck!" ~ Dennis Mayhew