“Two years you’ve owned her? What have you done?” is a question I get a lot, and I understand it. Standing on the docks you will never be able to see the new wiring inside Ave, or the new coaxial cable inside the mast, or the new bilge pump, the VHF, the inside of the diesel tanks, the engine compartment light, or the fresh engine hoses. Frankly, you’d never know I’ve done anything at all unless you’ve got a trained eye and you can spot the new standing rigging or the repainted spars. The pretty stuff has spent two years on the back burner. 

Until yesterday. 

With my palm sander, a quart of denatured alcohol, and a dozen sheets of 80 grit sandpaper, I started work on the cap rail, that potentially-glorious strip of wood along the top of the edge of Ave’s decks. I thought it was teak. I now suspect it may be mahogany, but I’m still not sure yet. I’m not so good at photo-journaling my life, but the little photo below demonstrates the amazing difference between the before and after of just one initial sanding. This will get followed by a pass of 150 grit, then 220 (much finer), and then 8 or so coats of Epiphane’s spar varnish. 

“Brightwork,” it is called, and we are making it bright again indeed.