Isaac, you foiled my plans!

After spending Labor Day weekend out on a lake in the Adirondacks and getting no work done on the boat, I decided to take an extra day off work yesterday with the hope of getting the first coat of Perfection on the sides of the cabin top and deck perimeter.  When I say perimeter, I mean the sides of the deck along the bulwark and cabin top, as well as any other areas that won't be covered by the non-skid (KiwiGrip).  Applying Perfection to areas that will be covered would just be a waste of money.  I think that the 3-4 coats of epoxy primer on the entire deck will be ample protection should the KiwiGrip fail.

Unfortunately, the remnants of Hurricane Isaac decided that he would come visit and bring lots of rain and humidity so I decided that it would be best to hold off until drier conditions.  It's not that it was raining in the boatshed, but I've heard that some paints can be a bit finicky when applied in very humid conditions and I don't want to risk putting down a bad coat.

I moved ahead with paint preparations anyway, and drilled pilot holes for all the deck hardware (except for the hatches on the cabin top and aft deck.  I used the holes on the underside of the deck as a template and drilled up with a 3/64" bit.  It was sort of ironic that I spent all this time patching holes in the decks only to make new ones as soon as I was finished.  In any event, it needed to be done so I could use the holes as a guide for where to apply the Perfection.  No pictures, but it wasn't much to see anyway.

With that done, I switched from the paint front to building a platform at the back of the boatshed to make it easier to board the boat.  With the exception of painting, most of my remaining work will be in the cockpit/cabin/engine area and making it easier to get on board without having to crawl down the sidedecks will go a long way in keeping things clean.  I built it about 5 feet up so it's an easy step onto the boat once I'm on the platform.  I also built an ugly, but functional  wide ladder and screwed it right to the platform.