Caping the Rail! ! ! !

SHIP'S LOG:

Yesterday was spent doing maintenance on the caprail. The caprail is a flat railing of wood that goes around the edge of the boat. Traditionally it "capped" the bulwark along the edge of the boat and you could brace yourself against it when the boat was heeling to stay on board. On most boats today it is more decorative that truly functional, but it needs maintenance nonetheless.

I had hoped that it was made of teak in which case maintenance would have been to do "nothing." It had been varnished once sometime ago and the varnish was peeling off in places and look fairly gross. It became clear that the wood was not teak and that to let it just go would mean more maintenance in the future along with probably replacement. So yesterday was spent scraping down the rail over its entire length. It also meant filling and faring all the holes, cracks and small missing sections and sanding it all down. I am getting pretty good at this as it all requires a certain ability to contort your body into some crazy positions in order to get at the places you want to get at.

I decided after the prep work was done, to stain the would and cover it with a polyurethane coating to seal it. I didn't know what type of wood it was, but since it was an English made boat, odds were pretty good that it was oak. So I stained it "Walnut." Hey, it was the only stain I had and why let it go to waste? Actually, with the dark blue hull, the "almost black" walnut stain looked pretty good, far better than the honey colored varnish that proceeded it. Today, I will coat it with the polyurethane and that should be that for at least awhile.