The (Actual) Great Beautification

Well, as you may have guessed from the photo here, the plans for the Great Beautification had to be changed slightly. I went to work with the ensemble of products mentioned in previous entries and the result was none to spiffy.

The main problem? As usual, tackling the job with a hint of know-it-all arrogance. I mean, how difficult could it be to develop a wondrous sheen with a buffer, a little rubbing compound (of the exceptionally mild variety) and a little wax. And aren't the pages and pages of advice on detailing available on the internet enough to help a guy transform a scruffy boat (or only slightly scruffy boat, in Betty's case) into a veritable show piece?

Hmmmmm. Well, lemme tellya...detailing ain't exactly easy, even after watching a whole pile of internet clips purporting to offer the inside track. Hey! Although the little devils look much the same, there's a major difference between operating a power grinder (as I used to do while working as a deckhand on commercial steel boats in my younger days) and operating a power buffer or polisher. And also, detailing boats and cars are two largely different tasks as well. The six-inch Porter-Cable polisher I started out with was not nearly as effective as the Porter-Cable nine-incher I wound up using.

To read what I specifically did to produce a knock-down-drag-out finish on Betty Jane please refer to the upcoming portion of the Shipyard column in the June issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine--it's entitled Wax On, Wax Off. In the pieced, you'll notice I had to change my wax slightly (check out the above photo to see what I substituted for Collinite's paste wax) and I also had to skip the Finess-It II. Ah well!

In case you're interested in what's going on in the photo here, it's pretty simple. I am removing dried rubbing compound from a polishing pad with a tool created for the purpose. You gotta do this ever so often to keep the pad working well. Actually, a screw driver works just as well as the tool shown here and, if you've got a few spares kickin' around that aren't gonna cost anything, is a heck of a lot cheaper.

The Start Of The Great Beautification II

Boring picture, right? Well, not exactly. At least for a guy like me who's a hard-bitten do-it-yourselfer and has been since birth.

As noted in a previous post (The Start Of The Great Beautification), I have decided to hit the ol' Betty Jane with the ultimate wax job, an extravaganza propounded by my friend Milt Baker, the proud owner of a Grand Banks 32 who's now switched over to a Nordhavn passagemaker. In a missive to the Grand Banks web site some while ago Milt spent some words on a relatively simple, yet succinct, method for achieving a very high level of cosmetic finish on a fiberglass boat. He seemed pretty confident of the system he'd fallen upon and the products that put the pizazzzzzzzz in it.

So anyway, having taken a tip from Milt, I have now assembled most of the tools and products I need for the job. These include a 5-inch buffing plate and a bunch of six-inch foam-wool buffing pads (shown in my hand above), a Porter Cable 7424 orbital polisher/sander (not shown), a pile of green microfiber towels (shown above), a quart of a 3M product called Finess-It , and, for the application of the primo wax I am going to use--an old-fashioned paste type (No. 885) from the Collinite Company of Utica, New York (not shown)--a six-and-a-half-inch gray-foam finishing pad (it's behind the plate/buffing pad combo in my hand).

Note that I got most of this stuff from Autogeek.net, an excellent outfit that charges reasonable prices, is prompt, and offers genuinely useful product support. The Porter Cable 7424 (reportedly one of the best polishers on the market) I already owned, as luck would have it. Bought the darn thing years ago from Lowe's and never really used it.

Unfortunately, the winter weather in North Florida has been wintry in the extreme, especially on weekends. So I am continuing to hang fire, waiting for temperatures above 50 degrees. But I'll tell ya--I'm gettin' antsy. Stay tuned.

The Importance of Nonchalance In Boating

My wife BJ snapped this photo recently--I was backing Betty Jane into her slip, a process that typically requires several maneuvering changeups. Without going into the whole deal too deeply, let's just say there's quite a lot of backing down that goes on, but also a fair amount of going ahead.

Moreover, none of the backing down stuff or going ahead stuff occurs in anything like a simple form. For example, you'll have some backing down for a while...then a shot of going ahead for a while (to reposition the stern in, say, a misapprehended cross-current situation)...then some more backing down for a while...then a shot of going ahead (accompanied by a rapid rotation of the steering wheel to put the opposite rudder on)...then goofy mixes and matches of these iterations for, oh, maybe a solid three or four minutes.

Confused? Heck, that's okay. So am I. Always have been.

Besides, boathandling's not the subject of this entry anyway. What I'm getting at here has to do with appearances and, more to the point, the appearance of myself (above) while working through a typically complicated and lengthy scenario of back-downs, go-aheads, and steering wheel spins.

Hey...do I look like I was just about to fall asleep or what? Even though my nerves are writhingly tense and I am big-time worried that several of my friends on the dock (who seem to enjoy watching Betty return to her home even when they've probably got better things to do) will see me sweat or even screw up. And even though one of my buddies is crowing to the other, "Watch this...bet he scrapes a piling...ha, ha, ha."

Well guess what, folks...I did NOT scrape a piling or even come close on this particular day. And I maintained such an aura of nonchalance while teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown that I should have been given an award that Sunday evening...perhaps an Oscar.

After all, nonchalance (or the appearance of nonchalance) during seriously or even seemingly dicey times onboard is important. If nothing else, it keeps your crew from freakin' out and jumpin' ship, a development it's tough to be even a little bit nonchalant about.