Let the Torture Boarding Begin

I made myself fairly scarce at work this week and spent 2 afternoons finishing up adding the fairing compound to all the decks.  Now the first coat is on the entire boat.  I used just a tad less than a gallon of epoxy mixed to a 2:1 ratio of Q-cells to Aerosil.  Some spots are better than others but overall I'm pretty pleased with the results.

I certainly will need more in some spots (particularly the cabin top which seems low), but it will be a lot less than the first pass.  No surprise but the hard parts were around the chainplates and rear deck scuppers.  For a final pass I will re-install the chainplates with a layer of tape around them and fair with them in place. But that's a ways off.

I have to say that I'm not sure what people are complaining about.  Long (torture) boarding isn't that bad.  I find it somewhat soothing.  Sure it's slow going, but it sure as hell beats grinding bevels in the decks with the angle grinder.  I will not miss that one bit.  I may build another longboard that has a little more flex to it to conform to the curved areas on the deck, but the two that I made so far seem to be working well (17" & 11" for tighter areas).   I spent about 2 hours this morning long boarding the foredeck and as expected, there were a few low spots but nothing major and a small amount of additional compound should make it right.  Once I make it around the whole boat with the longboard (maybe another week or so), I'll pull all the ports and start sanding and prepping the cabin trunk sides.  Then a final (hopefully) coat of fairing compound to fill out the low spots and another round of longboarding.  At that point things ought to be ready for primer, but depending on weather (temp and humidity), that may have to wait until spring.

Woohoo, decks!  

Hard to see, but the foredeck up to the forward part of the cabin trunk has been longboarded.  The darker areas are low spots that will need to be filled again.