Whale deck - night marathon in gas mask
Real spring weather today - warm, dry winds came to my part of Sweden. Soon time to launch our wooden boats. Time is running out!
I went to boatyard after work, to finish sanding whale deck. I continue doing it by hand, machine makes too much noise and dust, I’d rather squeeze some elbow-grease and do it in controlled, calm way.
It was empty in the boat yard and full Moon was shining. While working I was debating with myself on painting vs varnishing the whale deck.
All this sanding I do now is because I intended to paint it white. I look on Kaika who stands close to Meritaten and visualise how my boat will look with white sides.
Kaika is (much) bigger sister of Meritaten and her massive hull looks great with white whale decks. Besides, Börje didn’t want to show them varnished after re-gluing plank seams. Painted sides cool down the deck in heavy sunshine and give the boat even more massive look.
As a comparison I have Bimsy who stands in front of Meritaten.
She is fully varnished. Opened seams were cured with squeezed in brown Sika and varnished on top. Apparently this works and is less time consuming than nåtlimning. It also does not impede risk of splitting planks. It does not look that tidy thou…
Properly done nåtlimning is still pleasant to look at.
Only yesterday was I convinced to paint white.
Now I have doubts again.
I’ve started to lean back towards varnishing whale decks. It leaves me more options for the future - I can always paint them next year but if I decide to re-glue them then it has to be done when I can see plank seams - under varnish.
I like to look on these wooden curves when I sail Meritaten. It is the only part of wooden hull which I can see from the cockpit - freeboard is otherwise visible only to others, not to me.
While sanding tonight I admired these curves and wood grain in her old-growth mahogany planks. Would be a pity to cover that with paint, especially that her whale decks are still in decent condition.
I will give back the paint cans I bough. You hear me Jim?
Varnish will it be this year!
Whale decks are now sanded. On my next visit I will go around them again with scotch-brite to knock down any shining wood parts before vacuuming everything and preparations for deck painting.