Coachroof

I just finished rolling the second finish coat on the coach roof, and it looks much better than the first one. As I mentioned in my last post, I didn't tip this one at all. I suppose it's possible to get better results tipping, but not without a second person doing the tipping. I also noticed some garbage in the finish after it settled and think it's coming from the foam roller. I only changed rollers once, but now think I need to change it more often -- the thinner is probably making them slowly disintegrate.

I mixed up about half a quart and thinned it 15%, and tried to roll it on very thin and even. Most of it looks fine, but it's still not completely flat. However, at this point, I just want to get the deck covered so I can remount all the hardware and get her in the water. I had a little left over after I finished the coachroof, and was able to put a second coat on the port side deck as well. I'll give it a couple of days to harden, then start remounting all the hardware.

Now, it's time to finish the cockpit and toerails. Tommy told me I could use some scrap fiberglass panels to make a shim for the mast step, so I'll try to trim the mast this week and make the shim. There are a couple of other holes in the deck that I'm thinking about patching, so I'll see if I can get a couple more small pieces for them too. One is the hole for the heater stack, and the other is the hole from the old compass -- it was replaced by one in the binnacle when the wheel was added. I'll fix those spots once I get to Houston.

Zoe watch:

Now that I'm done painting the forward part of the deck, she'll be able to get up there again and hang out. She likes to stick her head out at the bow and stand watch. I've kept her off it for the last few weeks in order to keep it clean for painting, but thankfully, that's done. I still need to caulk and varnish the toe rails, but dog hair isn't as big a deal for those tasks.