monsters under the bed

The monsters aren't under the bed if you don't look. At least that's what we convinced ourselves as very young children. I'd realised that I was taking the same strategy to what was underneath the teak in the cockpit. If I didn't look, then it wouldn't be bad news.

Today, I bit the bullet, and upon arriving on Phoenix, set to in removing it. It was truthfully, starting to come apart itself, with the caulking having failed in a few places, and several planks starting to stick up, hence the concerns over what was lurking underneath.

The hope was to get it off in one piece, and then reassemble at home, and refit neatly... that soon proved futile. The remaining stuck pieces were stuck. No, I mean they were STUCK.

Eventually, a claw hammer saw the wood off. Mainly in pieces.

I was rather relieved to see that there was not in fact a monster under the bed, and just a lot of messy gunk.

This is what greeted me upon removing the teak

This left the next challenge... removing the horrible brown sikaflex.

Now, anyone who has spent any amount of time around boats will know that Sikaflex is a superb substance that will render any moveable object firmly immovable.

Only upon removal time does it become apparent that it is in fact the work of Satan.

Its too firm to peel off and too soft to sand off. It can only be removed in tiny quantities at a time with a sharp scraping device. Nothing dissolves it. Pure evil.

At the time of writing, I am only half way down the starboard side. I haven't yet removed any teak on the port side, as it looks in a lot better condition, and therefore it depends if I replace the starboard side  or not.

One of the options is to just paint the seats and not put new teak back in. The new teak WILL be expensive... so its a serious option to not have any. Only, the teak does look great, and also, just painted surfaces can be a bit slippy. A decision to be made.

In the meantime, this evening, I have started wiring up the stereo at last... the new speakers arrived this week, and i've worked out where they are going... speaker cable to go in tomorrow. Jim... we'll have tunes!