Clean and Polish

Clean and Polish   …   Friday 28 June 2013

We spent most of today on board doing boat maintenance. In particular we worked on cleaning and waxing the fiberglass gelcoat in the cockpit and polishing the stainless steel of all the deck fittings. These are actually quite big, time consuming jobs. Overall the boat is in good shape but there are a few things that need attention in the near future. The canvas dodger is pretty much on it's last legs and we'll try and make a new one when we get back. Similarly the insect screens that fit in the hatches need re-designing and replacing. By far the biggest job is re-painting (Awlgrip) the boat. There's no question that it needs doing, we knew that when we bought it, but it's a really expensive job. We got to talk to the Awlgrip representative when we were down at Wilmington Marine and he told us a few things that we didn't really want to hear! Firstly, he looked at Cotinga and said there was nothing that could be done to improve the current paint and that it was at the stage where deterioration would start to accelerate and potentially impact the layers underneath making it more costly to re-paint. Secondly, he confirmed what we already had heard that our red (claret) color has the worst durability of any of the colors and that dark colors in general can increase the temperature of the hull to above the recommended limits of the underlying gelcoat. So all in all we are pretty certain we do need to get the boat re-painted and we'll probably go for a lighter color - much as we like the claret.

After a hot day of work we got cleaned up and took the the "Dumb Dog" into the dock and walked up through town to a restaurant called the "Navesink Seafood". On "Trip Advisor" it is rated as the best restaurant in Atlantic Highlands and we weren't disappointed. We both started with Manhattan clam chowder and then Gloria had Grouper Francaise (fish dipped in egg and sautéed with a lemon sauce) whilst I had seared tuna with ginger, soy and wasabi. Both dishes were excellent. We wandered back to the dock in the rain, but at least today there was no thunder and lighting.

Mike