On Board with Mark Corke

Applying paint

    Nothing smartens up a boat like a fresh coat of paint but to get the ultimate finish it takes several things in equal measure, materials, patience and preparation. It has been said many times in the past but it is worth repeating here and that is to get the best results you have to do the correct amount of prep work.  Because painting is one of the last things to be done in a boat building or boat restoration project it is tempting to just slap on a few coats of paint and hope for the best but time taken in sanding, filling and fairing will pay big dividends in terms of the look of the finished project and the ultimate durability of the completed boat.

    Probably the best finish that it is possible to get is with the aid of a spray gun but this is often outside the scope of the amateur, requiring specialized application and safety equipment. Not far behind that is the finish that can be achieved with the roll and tip method and the one that I personally have had excellent results with.  When undertaken with care many casual observers cannot distinguish this from a spay finish.

The photographs shown in the this feature show me painting the dinghy shown in an earlier posting but the basic principles are the same whatever boat you are painting you will just need more paint. All the major manufacturers have excellent websites with a ton of technical information and many also offer phone support and offer guidance in helping you chose the correct products. Incidentally I am using the Interlux products in this guide, I am familiar with their paint having used it for many years but any of the other major marine paint suppliers’ products are equally good.

Step 1

Collect together all the materials that you need which for the dinghy consisted of
6 inch foam rollers and disposable paint trays
A couple of the best quality paint brushes on two inch and one 4 inch, badger hair is the ultimate and will last many years if treated well, do not use cheap brushes they will spoil the finish and bustles that fall out will get you mad.
Blue painter’s masking tape
120 and 240 grit abrasive paper along with a couple of the 3M 100 grit sanding sponges
Plastic mixing tubs
Disposable paint strainers

    The following all from Interlux but other manufacturers have similar products
        Perfection paint, amount will depend on surface area, I used Fighting Lady Yellow
        Interfill 813/815
        Solvent 333
        Solvent wash 216
        Epoxy barrier coat
        Primkote 404/414

Davis Sextant

It was my son Sam's birthday this week and one of the things that I got him was a Davis plastic sextant which I photographed before wrapping it up and giving it to him. It might look like a bit for a toy but I have used one of these sextants at sea and although not as good as an Astra or one of the Japanese sextants the Davis costs a fraction of the price.  As a sextant with which to learn it is nearly perfect and should Sam damage or worse drop it over the side of the boat it hardly matters unlike dropping a brass $2000 sextant into the drink.

The Davis' one drawback is that it does not have a telescope so can only really be used for sun sights as it is impossible to use at night for looking at the stars but then what can you expect for $60, Davis do however sell a more expensive model with a telescope.

I have always been fascinated by astro navigation, that it is, with the aid of a set of tables, a clock and a sextant possible to find ones position anywhere on the earths surface. Of course I use GPS sets like everyone else but there is something very satisfying and fundamental about fixing the boats position with just a few basic instruments.

Learning how to take sights and fix your position with a sextant is not difficult and as my old instructor said to me "the first time it will take you 30 minutes but after a couple of weeks practice you will wonder what all the fuss is about". He was right and I still practice my sights when out at sea, it's comforting to know that should I loose all my electrics I can still find out where I am.

Courtesy lights

    Regular readers of On Board will know that I am very keen on LED lighting for a ton of reasons; the low power consumption, the fact that you never need to change a bulb and the small overall size of the fitting.

     These courtesy lights look perfect for stairways and other low level applications and although I don't have anywhere to fit these lights right now I will probably install them on my next boat to light up the stairway at night. Interestingly they are available in Red, White and Blue, the latter color has recently been found by the navy to be better for preserving night vision than red which was always thought to be the best color. Having tried blue lights on the chart table I can confirm that my purely unscientific tests do seem to indeed show this to be the case.

These Hella 8560 Series Courtesy Lamps from Hella marine retail for around $25.99, weigh next to nothing and have overall dimensions of 1.7" Long x 1.2" Wide x 0.8" Deep. Hella tells me that they consume less than half an amp at 12 volts but my tests confirm that it is actually slightly less than this nearer .4 amps. I'll bring you a few more pictures of the blue lamps just as soon as I have them fitted into the boat.

Building your own boat

    I've often been asked in the past if boat building is difficult. Well it can be in the truest sense of the word but there are so many ways to build a boat that it is difficult to give a straight answer. For anyone contemplating building their own boat you have to ask yourself some tough questions, do I have the resources and skills to see the project through, both financial and time. Why do I want to build? If you want to build because you think it will be a cheap way to get out on the water then think again, building even a modest boat is fairly expensive. True, it can often be cheaper than buying a ready built boat because you don't have to factor in your own time but it is often more cost effective to buy a secondhand boat then spend some time fixing it up before you actually use it.

On the upside of building a boat you will have the satisfaction of building and ultimately using a craft that you have built with your own hands. The costs can often be spread out over several years and so you don't have to pay for everything up front and finally you can look smug when you tell other boaters as they admire your craft that you built it yourself.

I have to admit that I have built several boats for my own personal use and have generally enjoyed the experience immensely but it always takes me longer than I estimate and you would have thought that I would have figured that out by now.

In my opinion the best course of action for fledgling boat builder is to start small. Build a dinghy or canoe from a kit to find out if you are cut out for boat building. A couple of years back I built an Eastport dinghy from a kit supplied by CLC. As I was doing this for a magazine story I kept a fairly comprehensive record of my time, I spent 40 hours on the build and  a further 80 on the finishing, painting and varnishing. I have built many boats over the years so without sounding boastful I am probably faster than many people at building boats but for an 8 foot dinghy this is still a not insignificant 120 hours.

Scale that up to even a modest power or sailboat with all the extra systems, engines, electrical installations and so on and the time required quickly adds up. Now I am not in the business of bursting anyone's bubble I love building boats and would encourage anyone to get stuck in just be aware of what is entailed. If you have built your own boat I would love to see a picture or two along with a brief description.

The picture below is my Golant gaffer "Mallard" which took me almost  5 years of part time work to build from start to finish.

Battery Lugs

    I've been upgrading the electrics on a boat these past few days. I am installing new batteries and while I am at it I am taking the opportunity to upgrade the charging circuit. The alternator works fine but the battery switch was one of the popular 1,2, both or off, four position switches which work great providing that you remember to turn the switch to both when the engine is running and then switch to number 1 or 2 which ever corresponds to the house bank when you are back at the dock. As long as you remember to operate the switch as intended the engine bank will be isolated so you will always have a charged up battery to start the engine. The trouble is with this type of switch it is all too easy to leave it in the wrong position and flatten the starting battery inadvertently.

What all this means is that while I have been installing the new cables and so on I have taken the opportunity to install one of the Blue Sea Automatic charging relays. I will bring you pictures and a detailed description including a step by step of the whole process before the end of the week but in the meantime I wanted to share this tip with you.

Crimping on battery lugs securely is a must for proper electrical contact. There are expensive crimpers for large diameter cables but for the amount that I do I manage fine with the simple and cheap alternative that you can get in almost any West Marine or specialty boat store. The instructions tell you to put the cable into the correct slot then give it a couple of good whacks with a hammer. The trouble with this is the cable moves, the lug moves and the whole shebang jumps about and frankly it is not a very refined approach. A large vise offers much more control and performs a far better job, things happen at a slower pace and it works a treat every time.

Oil Change Time

   

    When it comes to time to change the oil on the average boat engine it is often rife with frustration, the sump plug is right at the lowest part of the engine and it is often next to impossible to get a collection pan of any sort under the sump to collect the waste oil as it runs out. For this reason many times the oil is not changed at the specified intervals.

     Keeping oil out of the bilge is very important as a gallon or so of engine oil will run everywhere and stink up the boat in short order. I have had good results with the Topsider oil changer shown here. In case you are unfamiliar with these simple but effective tools here's how they work. A hand pump is attached to to a canister but the pump is designed to suck instead of blow creating a vacuum in the container as it is operated. A simple clothes pin type seals the pick up pipe which is inserted into the dipstick hole as shown below.

    After the tube is pushed down the dipstick hole the clip is released and the vacuum in the tank draws the oil into the 2 gallon container for safe disposal. The topsider costs about $60 but in my humble opinion is worth every penny in saved aggravation and making a potentially messy job easy and clean.

    There are electric pumps that do the same job but they cost much more and unless you have a couple of big motors in the boat you will manage just fine with the manual pumps. However I must admit that the electric Reverso pumps are great and are just about a standard fitment in many larger powerboats.

TIP.  If you can change the oil when the engine is hot it will be thinner and much easier to suck up with less chance of leaving significant residue in the sump pan.