Matthew's Jarcat 6 pages

The inside of the cabin had also been receiving attention with all fillets sanded and filled where necessary. The inside was given a coat of epoxy with preservative. On advice (thanks Vic) I will not paint the inside until I have used the boat for a while and have figured out what internal furniture I want to install.

Meanwhile I continue to paint ... sand .....paint ......sand.......paint...........................

As noted on the previous page the whole exterior of the topsides was covered with a layer of fibreglass cloth and epoxy. This was followd by a liberal brushed coat of epoxy primer. In this photo you may note that I have added rubbing strakes to the gunwale. These are from 12mm thick hardwood and I hope they will protect the edge of the deck ply from mechanical damage. (This actually bought the total width of the boat up to 2.515m so I had to plane the strales back to maintain an overall width of 2.5m - the legal towing width limit)
The tack trck had also been given strengthening layers of 195gm/sqm fibreglass tape before the primer.

The rudders were shaped from 18mm plywood and then given a strengthening layer of undirectional fibreglass mat on both sides.

After filling the weave with several coats of epoxy primer they were wet sanded to a smooth finish.

The stormboards were cut from 6mm ply. The only addition I made was to add a stiffening timber on the inside top edge of the lower stormboard. Like all the timber and ply in the boat these were given a coat of epoxy with preservative added before painting.

Here are the two hatches. The inside paint is a single pack polyurethane marine finish. Colour is listed as Pearl and it really is more white than this photo shows. The edges of the hatch are "Luxethane" and the darker area in the middle is a non skid deck paint.

After several coats of the primer (wet sanding between each coat) I achieved an acceptable finish with most imperfections filled.

I used Dulux "Luxathane" for the finish coat, again because I was able to spray this paint and achieve a reasonable finish. Both the Dulux products are industrial type paints but I was reassured that they would suit the exterior of the boat. I had also received advice on the Jarcats Yahoo site that others had used these products satisfactorily.

Along with the exterior topsides , the hatches were also covered with fibreglass mat and epoxy resin. Then came several coats of epoxy primer /undercoat. I switched to Dulux "Luxepoxy" as I found that I was able to spray this product and achieve a reasonable finish.