Perfectionism is what is required to take these stern extensions to their final iteration. Not having come from a factory mold, all of the complex shapes have to be matched and the hulls smoothed to resemble one. This involves glassing "up" any low spots and sanding down any high spots.
It takes great skill not to grind too long in one spot creating new low spots, or otherwise distort curves meant to follow geometric patterns. Sweeping strokes with a grinder or long-board sanders are what is needed here. The result gets us as close to a perfectly fair surface as humanly possible.
How do you know when you've got it nice and fair? Well, you have to see & feel it.
Spraying a bright coat of white primer also helps with visualization of fairness (plus a cool sneak-peak at what the finished product might look like!). For example, we knew the starboard hull needed some more long-board work and the primer confirmed it.
As expected, more sanding after primer takes the surfaces to near-perfection. We are now ready for the final gel-coat application; however this requires a shipment from the States, followed by some color-matching first.
In the meantime, Saúl and Mark make a non-skid mold from Reach's deck and use this to make custom non-skid steps for the new sterns.
This, they knock-out in no time and after a weighted curing process, the steps are less of a skating-rink and now safe to walk upon.
Saúl then starts the next step of polishing Reach's existing gel-coat and getting a coat of wax on her.
It's been four years since we've had a good polish and wax of the hulls and it's already looking like a new boat.
So impressive... & so fun to fall in love with your boat all over again.
The big question is when are we going to wrap this up and finally splash? Who knows??
It'll be whenever it'll be ~ but you may expect a full report on the functionality of our new sterns once we do!