Brightwork season...

It is now starting to warm up and you know what that means. Yes, it is the beginning of the brightwork season! The time of year that seafaring folk break out the sandpaper, steel wool, turpentine and varnish and go to town on the wooden bits of their boats that are left in the weather all year long.

Luckily for us the SV Clarion has very little in the way of exposed wood, but I still have to do all of the requisite things to be sure that she looks like a well cared for boat. To that end I have begun taping off sections of the hand rails and rubrails on the cabin top. I have applied eco friendly stripping product and will soon be applying a very large amount of elbow grease to get the stubborn varnish of years of use off the rails so I can sand and apply more and newer varnishes to them. It is a labor of love that is, still, in essence, labor.

Since the first day I had my first boat at ten years old, the need to keep it up has been my (grudging) responsibility. My dad told me in no uncertain terms that if I ever wanted to get out on the water in that cool boat I had first to remove and sand every wooden bit by hand, varnish them well, reassemble them and have them checked out by his expert eye. Needless to say I was not hot on the idea. Not much has changed. I still would rather do nearly anything than sand rubrails but duty calls and I can't have my boat looking shabby so off I go.

In a little while I will post some of the pics I have taken of the ongoing project. The taping is first and probably the most important part followed by stripping and sanding which is going on now. Next I will have to bleach out some of the wooden rails that have darkened too much from the weather, and finally I get to begin recoating the wood to bring out the old fire and make it look like new. I am looking forward to seeing the results. I have been looking at the blackened and scruffy looking wood for a while now and want it to look better. I want to learn magic to do it, however.

If anyone out there knows of a simple way to get the job done that does not involve giving lots of money to a boatyard to do it for you let me know. I may not have a lot of wood but I still want it to look great.