The last few weeks I have been working on the starboard head. For some reason the teak cabin sides had been painted over with grey paint, as had other parts of trim, while the shower itself was looking very tired.
I stripped all the paint off and sanded back to bare teak, and have coated with Awlwood MA Gloss (aka Uroxsys) rather than standard varnish, as it should take the humidity a lot better. Also, even though it's f***ing expensive, the ability to lay up 3-4 coats in a day means the time savings compared to traditional varnish are worth it.
The shower took a lot of work. I sanded it back hard - the old base paint was actually fairly sound, but someone had slapped a coat of something low-grade over the top in the past. I also had to epoxy in a replacement section where an old vent fan had been. I've painted it with a white marine enamel, and it looks great and will hopefully be hard wearing. To work in the shower you have to close the head door, so I got to hot-box in the fumes and on the primer coat I managed to get myself seriously wasted and sick. Remember kids - Ventilation!
Under NZ Cat 1 (Offshore) regulations you have to have manual bilge pumps fitted. I have some but have been vacillating over where to fit them. The head still has the old through-hole in the wall from the old manual toilet pump, and it turned out the bilge pump fitted in nicely behind it. So now if it really hits the fan you can be seasick and pump out at the same time.
I'm heading off overseas on business for a few weeks, but when I get back I'll finish off the bilge pump and fitting new shelves into the lockers.
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| Before... |
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| After. |
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| Shower looking rather uninviting |
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| Shower looking a lot more inviting. |
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| Old vent hole in shower. |
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| Ply epoxy saturated and fixed in |
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| Note the pump behind the through-hole in the bulkhead. Still have to plumb it up and get a cover made. |
