Boat Journal

Chronicling a love affair with sailing

Tag: non-skid

Follow Ups

Seems I’ve gotten a bit behind on the follow up to the products I’ve tried. So here’s a summary. Will try to figure out if I missed anything.

Judging by the amount of time it took for the knotmeter to stop working, it appears that the Lanocote only worked about 2 months. Mind you, I haven’t had anyone dive the boat, so I can’t say that the barnacles have taken over for sure. But symptoms do appear to point in that direction.

Kiwigrip has shown mixed results. It’s definitely still doing well as a non-skid. But the spot that people walk on the most, the spot right in front of the companionway, is pretty worn down. There is little of the texture left. In addition, I’m still in search of a good stain remover for it. Problem seems to be that the staining material gets down in the valleys of the texturizer and it’s hard to scrub it out.

The anti-mildew paint I purchased at Home Depot (will need to look it up) and used to paint the entire interior is still working like a charm. No mildewy smell at all on the boat!

Boat Repair Pictures

I took copious pictures throughout the repairs this spring/summer. Rather than post them all here, here are links for you to follow to find them:

General Repairs
Cutless Bearing Replacement
Topside Painting
Motor Installation

 

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KiwiGrip Non-Skid

The standard choices for non-skid on a boat are filler mixed in with a paint, filler you add to a paint, and filler you sprinkle on wet paint. KiwiGrip, a New Zealand product, does it differently. The non-skid properties come from the texture laid on the product after it is spread on the deck. I read about this product in an article in the January 2011 issue of Good Old Boat magazine. The technique described seemed alot simpler than that of conventional products. And the application looked like it would easily solve one of my other issues: covering up alot of really badly stained non-skid on the deck, including what was left over after I filled the soft spot.

As I mentioned before, I removed the cockpit locker covers and cover over the cabin stairwell to paint them separately. It also allowed me to perfect my painting technique before trying it out on the entire boat. For the locker covers, that also meant getting a chance to apply the KiwiGrip before putting it over the rest of the deck.

Painting the rest of the pieces took quite a bit of time. I put on two coats of primer, as I had with the rest of the deck, to better cover up the crazing and the patches. Then I put on one coat of Interlux Matterhorn White Polyurethane. After putting on that one coat, I had a conversation with Doug, the proprietor of Wormley Creek, who suggested the worst color to paint a deck was white. Off-white was OK. But white was too bright to have out there on the water. He said that he told another owner that, but he’d insisted that’s what he wanted. The next year, they were painting the deck again.

Well, the Matterhorn White in the ‘sample’ on the front of the can, and the sample online looked a bit grey, so I didn’t worry about it too much. But that first coat on the covers looked more like snow white. Hence, Matterhorn? So I took a couple of the quarts to my neighborhood TruValue store and asked if they could help me out. One person passed me off to another, who passed me off to a third. That third person was willing to take a chance, when I told him I’d accept whatever he gave me. I showed him the sample I wanted. It was a lighter version of the Kelly Green I was using for the boat stripe.  He said that most bases weren’t full cans, so the computer-generated sampling would overfill the can. But he decided instead to try putting just the green dye in to see what would happen. I should have stopped him, I know. But deer-in-the-headlights me just let him do it. It didn’t turn out exactly the way I wanted, but it was OK.

So I went home and put on a coat of the new green matterhorn. Unfortunately, the TruValue guy didn’t keep it in the mixer long enough and the stuff was streaky the next day. So I mixed it myself with a drill and put on another coat. That wasn’t too bad.

Now there were two coats (well, three) of polyurethane on the pieces in the shed. They’d been sanded smooth after each coat and still needed touching up in a few spots. But I was ready to anxious to try the non-skid. And since more rain was expected, so there would be no painting on the boat, this was a good opportunity.

Non-skid applied to locker cover

I taped around the edges, cutting the rounded corners. I opened the can of KiwiGrip. It looked like yogurt. The author of the article I’d read suggested applying it with a spatula, so that’s what I did. Then I proceeded to texturize it with the special brush they sent.

Non-skip application

I put it on quite thick the first time. But when I tried using the texturizer on it, it looked awfully sharp. These are ‘seats’ after all, and I didn’t want sharp objects poking people in odd places. So I scraped off about half of what I’d put on and tried again. The results were quite good!

Finished non-skid

As the author of the article said, it will take a few years to see how well it holds up. But I am imprssed with how it looks. And it does cover up the sins of the original non-skid. I’ll add more pictures after I get it on the rest of the boat.

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