Whirlwind prep for haulout, plus

Next weekend I will be hauling Aeolus out for bottom paint, a new transmission, deck painting and whatever else I can fit in. So this weekend, I went to Aeolus to do the prep work for the haulout and take care of a few miscellaneous items on the To Do list. It was a whirlwind effort, and I barely sat down until time for dinner each night.

New KiwiGrip on Port Cockpit side

This shows a before picture of removing the teak and dealing with the 5200

One of my primary tasks was to thoroughly scrub and clean the topsides in preparation for putting KiwiGrip on the deck. The original gelcoat surface has worn smooth, and it has become too slippery standing at the mast to raise sail and reef on the sloping dome of the cabin top area. I'd slipped too often for comfort. So I started off my weekend by doing a very, very thorough job of scrubbing the entire deck with normal deck soap. Hit all the nooks and crannies etc. One of my other goals is to paint the hull stripe, which is long overdue as the original blue gelcoat is beyond resurrection. I've rubbed, and polished, and waxed and loved and polished and waxed that darn hull stripe and no matter what I do it needs it again in six months. Forget it. Time to paint with Perfection Mauritious Blue, a gorgeous two part epoxy deep blue color that will look beautiful for years with almost no maintenance.



So after scrubbing the deck, I scrubbed the hull stripe with a green scrubber. I then tackled scrubbing the cockpit rim on the port side in preparation for putting KiwiGrip on that too. Having removed the teak cockpit covering a while back, and done all the necessary remounting of hardware over new backing blocks, and filling the thousand little screw holes in the top glass with epoxy, it was now ready for the final application of Kiwi.

Before and after. The cleat on the rim was already removed.

After everything dried, I applied the KiwiGrip on the cockpit rim and it looks fantastic. The whole project to replace the ugly dead teak was worthwhile.

KiwiGrip on Port Cockpit side and hatch covers

This weekend I also hung out in the crawl space under the cockpit sole where you access the steering cables and transmission area. I needed to accurately measure the space I needed for the transmission cable mounting flange. I had to see how far up and back it could be allowed to stick without impacting the water muffler. While down there I went ahead and sprayed some TriFlow on all the moving steering equipment. Some of it is greased, but other places rely on oil, which I do annually. Really makes things smoother and quiets emerging squeaks.

I also finished mounting the second support brace for the radar pole, which involved drilling tapping a screw into the pole to hold the hardware for the dodger style fittings. And finally, I stripped and revarnished the companionway steps in preparation for putting some new non-slip pads on. I couldn't just mount the new pads because the varnish was looking a bit worn and the old non-slip strips left a tough residue that only a serious stripper would remove. It will dry this week and be ready for the non-slip pads next weekend. I capped off the weekend with yet another scrubbing of the decks and hull stripe, this time with TSP mixed with some bleach. The old deck has never looked or been so clean, and is now prepped for painting with KiwiGrip over next few weeks with only modest rinsing from any dust that accumulates.

A great working weekend aboard Aeolus. The next three weekends in a row will be spent working on her while she is out of the water. Most importantly, I will be replacing the transmission as reported here, which necessitates a whole host of affiliated projects like getting the prop shaft removed and cut down in Seattle, and replacing engine mounts, and installing a new cutless bearing, and re-installing the PSS seal with new seals, screws and bellows. Pretty major surgery all considered. Will be tons of fun, and give me plenty to think about for the next few weeks!