A thing of beauty is a job forever

WHEN I LIVED in South Africa I once owned a 30-foot boat that had bulwarks, a caprail, and a rubrail made of beautiful hardwood. I couldn’t help myself, I varnished it. And varnished it. And varnished it.  That hot sub-tropical sun burned through the varnish as if it were melting butter. Every six months I rubbed it all down and put on another two coats of varnish. But, man, it looked beautiful. People walking past in the marina used to come to a sudden halt and stare at it in awe.

Eventually, though, the inevitable happened. I got sick and tired of varnishing. I was also intending to sail that boat to America and I had plenty of other preparations to attend to. I had just about decided to paint all that nice wood a suitable buff color that looked almost like varnish from 20 feet away when I noticed the brightwork on another similar boat a few berths away. It was a lovely shade of honey teak, a transparent matte finish that always looked as if it had just been applied.

I saw the owner on board one day and asked him what kind of varnish he used.

“It’s not varnish, it’s Deks Olje,” he said. “It’s Norwegian magic. You just wipe it on with a rag. Rub it well in, all over, and you’re done. Just let it soak into the wood and dry. You don’t have to bother with fancy brushes and there’s no trouble with wind or dust.”

I couldn’t get to the boat store fast enough. I bought a large can of Deks Olje, which, lacking any knowledge of Norwegian,  I confidently translated as Deck Oil. The instructions claimed it was the “easiest maintenance system afloat,” a protective traditional wood oil, an alkyd-urethane resin. I was thrilled to have discovered it. 

I spent a week removing all the old varnish from my woodwork and sanded it smooth. It was a lot of work. I then applied three coats of Deks Olje with a clean rag. Nothing could have been simpler. Sure enough, it looked magnificent. It wasn’t shiny like the old varnish, but it had a deep, warm luster that enhanced the color and grain of the wood.

We went sailing offshore on day trials shortly afterward, and within two weeks the combined efforts of hot sun and warm salt water had devastated my Deks Olje. It looked terrible. Half of it appeared simply to have been washed away, leaving bare wood already going grey. Much of the rest had turned white, as if it were encrusted with some kind of chemical salt.  Needless to say, I was spitting mad.

I went back to the owner of the boat down the way. “My Deks Olje is a disaster,” I said. “How does yours stay so nice?”

“Oh, my Zulu house servant does it,” he said. “He comes down once a week and just applies a fresh coat. It’s the simplest thing. Takes him half an hour.”

”Once a week?” I said. “You mean, every week?”

“Yes,” he said. “Surely you have a servant?”

We sailed for the USA shortly afterward. I gritted my teeth and let the sun and waves remove the rest of the Deks Olje, which they did with remarkable efficiency. The brightwork weathered to a dignified silver grey and needed no attention at all.

Six months later I bought a can of good old-fashioned tung-oil varnish when we got to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and treated the wood to the old familiar routine. Once again, it looked magnificent and I sold the boat a few weeks later. I didn’t tell the new owner how soon he would have to re-varnish. I figured he was just lucky I hadn’t slapped on another few coats of Deks Olje.

Today’s Thought

 I cannot pretend to be impartial about the colors. I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.

— Winston Churchill, Painting as a Pleasure

Tailpiece

“Your wife tells me she found out you dated an eye doctor in Alaska.”

“No, no, that was no eye doctor. She was an optical Aleutian.”

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It's the unvarnished truth

IT’S SPRING TIME around here, and in the spring a sailor’s thoughts lightly turn to thoughts of varnish.

But nobody with any sense scrapes down and revarnishes unless absolutely necessary. For a while, you can get away with patching, or rubbing down a small area and varnishing over it to disguise the injury. Specifically, you can do this for shallow scratches and abrasions—perhaps even for deeper scratches—but you must do it before water, fresh or salt, soaks into the wood.

In the passage of time, you’ll notice darker patches where water has discolored the wood and lighter patches where the varnish has lifted away from the wood because of the action of the sun or the impact of some piece of equipment on deck.

Some defiant owners try to treat dark patches with a mild bleach such as oxalic acid. They sand the white patches down to bare wood and build up several coats. But they know in their hearts that they’re fighting a rearguard action.

Personal conscience is the best guide to when it’s time to scrape the whole darned lot down to bare wood and start from scratch. When your brightwork is suffering from the pox and you can’t live with it a minute longer, your conscience will nag you into action.

Incidentally. here’s an old rule for telling when you need to sand down and apply a couple of coats of varnish to freshen your brightwork for the season:

Wash the work thoroughly to get rid of all grime. Wet a piece of old toweling cloth and drag it, dripping across the surface of the varnish.

If the water left behind forms beads, the varnish is still in good condition. If the water sheets, or lies in flattish streaks, the brightwork needs attention. So get to it, and remember the prophetic words of the poet John Keats: “A thing of beauty is a job forever.”

Today’s Thought

Beauty . . . is merciless. You do not look at it, it looks at you and does not forgive.

— Nikos Kazantzikas, Report to Greco

Tailpiece

Other people think you’re dumb only because you don’t know they things they know.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

It might also be contagious

A VOICE AT THE GARAGE DOOR says accusingly: “You’re sanding again. Dust everywhere.”
“Uh-huh.”
“That means you’re going to varnish.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You said you were never going to varnish again. You swore if there was any wood, you’d paint it. You said varnishing is dumb.”
“Yes, but this is a tiller. Laminated ash and mahogany. It’s beautiful. You can’t paint laminated ash and mahogany.”
“It’s always the same when you get a new boat. Sand, sand, sand.  Varnish, varnish, varnish. Ten coats minimum you always say. I know what that means.”
“What?”
“The kitchen table.  You won’t varnish in the garage because it’s too dusty. So there’s going to be a tiller on the kitchen table for the next two weeks. And cans with dribbles of varnish. And old rags. And paint thinner.”
“Well, it’s only two weeks.”
“You said that last time. And the time before. And the time before that. Then you started sanding some hatch boards.  And that teak flag pole.  Then you made a door for the toilet. And naturally that had to be sanded and varnished, too.”
“I would have painted it, but . . .”
“But what?”
“Well, it was teak-faced plywood. Beautiful stuff. You can’t paint teak-faced plywood.”
“It never stops. I think you’re an addict. It’s a disease with you. You’re a compulsive varnisher. You dream of spar varnish. The objects of your affection are Captain’s Varnish and Epifanes.”
“Well, it keeps me off the streets and out of the pubs.”
“But not out of my kitchen.”
“But it looks so nice.”
“What? My kitchen?”
“No. Varnished wood.”
“That’s the same silly argument that compels people to plant lawns and work themselves to death keeping them looking nice. It’s illogical. Paint the darned wood already.”
“I can’t. It’s impossible.”
“You know something? You need help.”
 “Yeah, thanks, I do. So, okay, if you wouldn’t mind just grabbing that end of the tiller while I sand this bit.”

Today’s Thought

A thing of beauty is a job forever.
— The John Keats Rule of Varnishing.

Tailpiece

“Why have I been dragged into this police station?”
“Sir, you smashed your car. You’ve been brought in for heavy drinking.”
“Oh good. Let’s get started then, shall we?”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

Two different varnishes

ONCE UPON A TIME I had a racing dinghy with a varnished foredeck that was much admired for its perfect glossiness.  I hadn't taken too much care with the application of the varnish, but when it had cured good and hard I rubbed it down with very fine waterproof sandpaper and then buffed it with a rag and metal polish.  It sparkled like liquid amber.

A few years later, having built a new dinghy, I bought a different brand of urethane varnish.  When it came to the finishing touches, I was very disappointed.  No matter how much I sanded and buffed, I simply couldn't get it to shine like the first one. Only recently did I realize why.  There are two different kinds of urethane paints and varnishes. There's polyester urethane, like Awlgrip and Perfection, and there's acrylic urethane, the kind of finish they put on new cars in Detroit.  One of these varnishes can be  polished to a high sheen.  The other can't.

I found this information on the Cape Dory bulletin board in a post by "Brandon" dated November 7, 2010.  Here's what he said:

"Polyester urethane molecules are much smaller than acrylic molecules. So when they cure, the polyester urethane forms a tighter matrix, which gives a harder, more abrasion-resistant film, with better chemical resistance than the acrylic.

"Acrylics are more forgiving in application, trap less dust and are buffable. When an acrylic urethane is buffed, due to the lower cross-link density the melting point of the resin is much lower, i.e. it is softer. When buffing is carried out, the resin-rich layer "melts" and reflows into the scratch. It is possible to retain an intact resin-rich layer at the surface protecting the pigments and not losing significant thickness. The edges of touch-ups can be blended carefully in the same way. Long-term performance is not affected, as much of the resin layer remains.

"With the polyester urethane, the paint is a very hard rigid film, and to get rid of a scratch you need to cut deeply into the paint, leading to the exposure of the pigments. This looks shiny to begin with but the long-term performance of the finish is now compromised.

"I am currently following the build of a 95-footer in Viareggio, Italy. We are using Awlcraft (Snow-white), and almost finished painting her. I am happy to use the acrylic because we have found fairing issues on the hull, even with the white paint, and with the acrylic we can re-fair this 6-square-foot area, reshoot the area and blend in. We don't have to repaint the entire 95-foot hull side as we would with the polyester!"

Considering how tricky it can be to apply the better-known twin-pack polyester urethanes by brush, it might be more practical to use the acrylic urethane, without worrying too much about the finish, and then fine-sand and buff your way to a perfect shine, as I did with the first dinghy.  

It's good to have this knowledge, but sometimes I wonder how much longer it's going to take me to learn everything I really need to know about sailing and maintaining small boats.

Today's Thought

Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used till they are seasoned.
— O. W. Holmes, The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table

Tailpiece

 "How's your glassblower friend?"
"Not so good. He inhaled by mistake and had to go to the doctor with a pane in his stomach."

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Paint that teak

ANYONE WITH ANY SENSE paints exterior wood on a boat, even if it’s teak. I don’t have sense, so I can’t do it, but I know from long, bitter experience that paint is right. A nice, buff-colored paint even looks like varnish from a short distance, and it’ll last six times as long.

The trouble with clear finishes is that they let the sun’s rays damage the wood underneath. It’s not the varnish that gives up. It’s the wood, shrinking and squirming in the heat, that finally shrugs off the varnish. A reasonable paint job, the kind that you and I can do with an ordinary brush, will protect the wood and last for many years.

But if you’re like me, and couldn’t paint teak any more than you could put pajamas on the Venus de Milo, then use ordinary marine spar varnish. Don’t use epoxy, polyurethanes, acrylics, or clear car finishes.

Spar varnish is soft. It was originally made for wooden masts and booms. It squirms with the wood. It doesn’t get hard and split off when the wood swells and shrinks. Rub it down gently once a year in northern climes, twice a year down south, and slap on another two coats. When you need to scrape down to bare wood because you’ve neglected the finish too long, you’ll bless your spar varnish because it comes off easily. Iron-hard polyurethane is hell to get rid of.

Don Casey, the boat-maintenance guru, says your spar varnish will last indefinitely if you treat your teak this way and maintain the seal. It would still make more sense to paint it, of course, but teak, I’m afraid, has a way of making sense fly out the window.

A little varnished teak on deck sets a boat off. It gives a boat the warm glow of a cherished object. It tempers the pale, sterile plasticity of fiberglass. At the same time, too much varnished teak is murder on a boat’s crew and her owner’s bank balance. Too much varnish, to put it bluntly, is a sign of poor judgment.

So take three deep breaths — and paint the damn stuff.

Today’s Thought
Painting is the intermediate somewhat between a thought and a thing.
—S. T. Coleridge, Table Talk

Tailpiece
“How about a kiss, gorgeous?”
“Certainly not, I’ve got scruples.”
“No problem, babe, I’ve been vaccinated.”

A battle of conscience

IT’S A PARADOX that the best time of the year for sailing is also the best time of the year for varnishing. You can either varnish or you can sail, but if you have any willpower at all--if you want to show that you’re a real man, (even if you’re a woman)--you will deny yourself the hedonistic pleasure of sailing, and pick up the varnish brush. You know it must be done. You know exactly what will happen if you neglect your varnish.

Now, a little varnished teak on deck sets a boat off. It gives her the warm glow of a cherished object and it tempers the pale, sterile plasticity of fiberglass. But too much teak on deck is madness. It’s murder on the varnisher and the bank balance. Too much brightwork, to put it bluntly is a sign of poor judgment on behalf of the designer and the owner.

Nevertheless, if you maintain the seal, varnish can last indefinitely, says author Don Casey in his book Sailboat Refinishing (International Marine).

“Besides avoiding moisture penetration at nicks and scratches, you must protect against surface erosion by periodically applying a fresh top coat. Exposed exterior varnish should be recoated at least annually in northern climes, every six months in the tropics. Scrub the varnish to remove all traces of grease and dirt, then sand the surface with 180-grit paper (or scuff it with bronze wool) and lay on a new finish coat.”

There. It’s so easy. Now you know what you really should be doing. If you have any conscience at all, you will hate yourself next time you’re out sailing instead of varnishing.

Today’s Thought
The New England conscience ... does not stop you from doing what you shouldn’t—it just stops you from enjoying it.
—Cleveland Amory, New York, 5 May 80

Tailpiece
“Ah, monsieur, so you ’ave climb ze Matterhorn, eh? Zat is a foot to be proud of.”
“You mean feat, don’t you?”
“Ah, m’sieur climb it twice already?”