What bliss!  The sound of three heat guns and two sanders. Tangalooma has fully exposed her bottom to all and sundry. Stripping and sanding is now complete on the outside of the boat after a super effort during the week. There is a little bit to be done on the inside but at the moment the boat is upside down so we will get to the rest when we turn it over.

Robert Tearne returned earlier than expected and looked at the boat on Saturday. He plans to remove the outer skin in a number of places and replace some of the teak strips where they are badly damaged. That will be the work for the coming week. Since it is at best a two man job, only Robert and Con will be working on the boat this week. Once all the damaged areas are fixed, we will rotate the boat again and start on the inside. The remaining work is to replace the centreboard case, finish some sanding around the stringers, and do some patching of the gunwale.

By next weekend we may start on some of the spars which have seen better days. We can paint strip, replace any hardware that may be required, and repaint. We will be in touch by email to check availability as the week progresses.

Final step will be to do a light sand using fine paper, then apply a coat of two-pack sealant and five coats of varnish both inside and out. Since the varnish has to be applied within 24 hours of the last coat, it will require 6 consecutive days of work for the outside, and another 6 days for the inside. Hopefully we will get to that in August.