Bristol-Blue Lake Michigan Sailing Adventures

It was cold but totally worth it and it was good to be out on the lake again for the first time this year.  

With the deck refinished it's time to turn my attention to the lifelines.  The lifelines currently on the boat are old plastic-coated, stainless lines, with swagged on fittings. There are a few spots that the plastic coating is wearing pretty thin so as part of the deck reface I decided it was time to replace them as well.  After looking around I decided to switch them out with Dyneema line.  I found a great source on ebay and picked up some 3/16th 12 strand-braided Dyneema with a 6100lbs breaking strength.  This is some great stuff to work with.  Eye splices are so much easier than in double braid lines. The hardest part of this project was finding a gate latch that worked well with my stern pulpit.  Overall I am very happy with the way these turned out and expect to get a lot of years out of them.   

  Kiwi grip is some great stuff.  This is a latex-based paint that is back-rolled with a texturing roller. It is easy to clean up, easy to apply and leaves a great surface for your shoes to grip on. So far I am really happy with it.  The only drawback is bugs seem to like it. I suspect because it is latex paint it has a sweet smell that attracts the insects but I think it will dissipate after some time.  Kiwi grip photos via Tik Tok. 

  Ezpoxy second coat.  For the record I don't recommend Ezpoxy.  It is hard to work with and I'm under-welmed by the results.  Regardless the second coat is on and it looks like it could use a third in some spots.   

Stage one EzPoxy painting completed.  Today I got lucky and the weather cleared up and I got the first coat of paint on the deck and cockpit. Stage one is all the flatwork.  Stage 2 will be the non-skid.   

Started getting ready to paint this weekend and then the sky got dark and it sprinkled on and off the rest of the day.   

  As the sanding wraps up I start to look for a time to paint. It is Spring here in Michigan and it has started to rain. We have had three days of on and off sprinkles. While I know I could go down and sand and fill a few more spots here and there between the raindrops at some point, you have to stop and draw the line. I could go and go to perfection on this 45-year-old boat but why. We intend on sailing it and it will undoubtedly get a nick here, a scratch there, and a little line chafe there. Now we wait for the right weather, not too hot, not too wet, not too cold at night. These outside projects take patients. There are other projects to work on while we wait. Who knows with the prep done or nearly done maybe the boat will be launched before the deck is even finished.