Whale deck - preparations

This time I managed to start work early in the day and it made a difference - the task of abrading whale deck is boring and tedious but the work went smooth.

I started with grinding winch shelves to equal level, for new shelves to fit. Short job, with orbital sander.

I then moved to whale decks. Since the hull curvature is very abrupt there I don’t want to risk machine sanding so I did it by hand, with 180 grid paper. It took long mostly due to all equipment which is screwed to the deck and difficult or impossible to remove - stays mounts, life lines posts etc.

After a while Jim arrived and we synchronised our work. Since he planned to paint his boat today I quickly finished port side of my boat, vacuumed dust and switched to starboard side. This way I did not supply dust to Jim’s paint.

I’ve decided to paint whale deck white this year. After looking on pictures of Laurinkosters on the internet and visualising Meritaten with white decks I’ve finally made my mind. I also studied Lars’ boat - which stands in front of Meritaten - which is fully varnished by the boatyard proffs and looks like a jewell. Really furniture quality but after a while I got tired of monotonous freeboard of hers. Kaika - Jim’s Laurin - looks more interresting to me with her white whale decks.
So be it - not only will it break monotonous wooden appearance but will protect the deck better and make repairs easier and less visible.

Deck appearance will benefit from being nice and smooth so I cut all varnish bumps with a blade, before sanding everything.

I don’t sand to bare wood - paint will sit on existing varnish so in case I change my mind in few years it will be easier to revert to varnished appearance.

I did not manage to finish sanding, about 1h is left to do on starboard side but most tricky parts are now ready.

I’ll need to finish sanding during the week - I plan to coat primer paint during coming weekend.