nonskid « 1969chriscraftroamer46

With the hardtop damaged fixed, the crew moved on to the windshield frame and cabin top. The Nor’easter in March 2018 broke the overhead tent frames, which are made of 1-1/2″ PVC pipe. The high winds pushing against the tent skin caused the broken pipes to whip back and forth for hour after hour, which gouged and abraded the Awlcraft 2000 shiny paint on the cabin top and rubbed through the Awlgrip used for the non-skid. Keep in mind that we finished the Awlgrip paint job in 2013, and it’s only been exposed to sunlight when I’ve replaced the tent skin. It’s been really disheartening to see the “new” paint so badly beaten. But the repairs turned out well, and we took advantage of the opportunity to put the last topcoat on the mahogany toe rail….something about making lemonaid when life gives you lemons.

First, the guys sanded and taped off the windshield frame

The broken PVC pipes had abraded through the clear coat

Prepped and ready to spray the following morning

It was extremely hot when all of this was going on, so hot that spraying any time after 10am was simply not possible. So the crew would do all of the prep work, then show up the next morning, wipe down, tack off, suit up, and spray.

Problem: humidity causes the tape to loosen up overnight

The last thing we need is to have black metallic paint find its way past the tape.

And keep in mind from the last article that the insurance company’s estimate from Osprey Marine called for only using five rolls of tape for the whole repair!

Windshield is done, next up is the cabin top

Two gouges

Taped off and ready to spray

Nonskid is done

Nonskid is nasty stuff. It goes EVERYWHERE when you spray. Once it was done, the crew pulled all the plastic and retaped the boat for shiny Awlcraft 2000 Matterhorn White.

While they’re at it…

The mahogany toe rail had been sprayed before, but the plan was to do it one more time before splashing the boat. Since the boat is completely covered, and the cabin top is sufficiently far away from the toe rail that one sheet of plastic film can cover it easily, we sanded and sprayed the toe rail first. This wasn’t part of the storm damage, but when an opportunity presents itself…

That turned out nicely

After taping off the toe rail, they sprayed the cabin top

Done!

Off comes the plastic (hopefully, for the last time!)

Nice!

That toe rail is like a mirror

10 coats of DuPont MS1 topped by 3 coats of Awlcraft 2000 clear

So that’s a wrap for the Nor’easter damage repair and clear coat on the toe rail. Now I’ve got to transform Tent Model XXX back to the more compact version. There’s nonskid overspray all over the interior surface of the shrink wrap skin, so I need to be very careful as I peel it off.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Re-skinning Tent Model XXX (for the last time?)

This is the third time the project has been hit by disaster (fourth if I include the paperwork SNAFU). There was the bastard thieves who grabbed all of my portable tools, materials, and original Chris Craft parts in 2014. Then there was the boat next door that blew up, damaging the tent and my paint in 2015. There were some lesser disasters, too, but the next big one was that Nor’easter in March 2018 that whooped Tent Model XXX and damaged my brand new Awlgrip paint. After a time consuming and irritating claim process, we finally settled this week. The repairs have been ongoing for a while, but I wanted to wait to write about it until the work was basically done. After long four months, we’re almost there.

Step 1: wash the boat

A lot of dirt blew in through the gaping hole in the top during the storm, so washing the boat was the first thing I did.

That’s cleaning up rather nicely

I do like that Matterhorn white Awlcraft with the tinted windows

Next, the top skin was split so the roof could be raised

There was damage to the shiny paint as well as the nonskid on the cabin top and the hard top. I don’t want to re-skin the whole tent just yet, because once the nonskid gets sprayed the whole interior surface of the plastic skin will be covered with very coarse overspray. So instead I had the roof over the hardtop raised so there would be plenty of room for the guys to do the work.