Spring refit

It's time to bring the boat out on the water again, and this time I hope we'll be doing more boating and less working on the boat. I've put another coat of paint on the outside. It took > 1/2 a pint of paint, as well as a little more than 2 hours of work to wet-sand the whole thing, clean it with lacquer thinner, and apply the paint. Add another 1/2 hour of touch-ups to fix all the paint 'holidays' and add a bit more to the bow and skeg, and it's pretty much a 3 hour job. I also added a rudder lock to keep the rudder from popping up while sailing stern-heavy (the okume plywood is really light and both rudder and daggerboard keep popping out).

Now the big question is whether I should add more varnish to the boat. For starters I'll probably do the top side of the daggerboard, the rudder stock and the boat rails (and maybe the mast step and partner), i.e. the parts that take most punishment. The rest may have to wait, though I'm tempted to experiment with sand in varnish to make the bottom of the boat less slippery.