Evening glass off

... a surfing term, referring to the windless, calm conditions that often occur just before sunset.

I'm using the term a little differently:

Deck, glassed and peel-plied.

In other news, I went to the Strictly Sail boat show in Chicago and saw some folks and stuff. Had a beer with Jeff and his parents, and he's keen to get out this summer after a year off to marvel at the wonder of a new child in the family. Hopefully, this won't be his last free summer before he goes and mucks things up with yet another kid! Kevin, who lives in Chicago, was out of town but says he needs to get back on the water as well. It looks like the upper midwest might just get its act together this year!

Cool stuff at the show were Harken's new T2 family of light, easier to tie on small blocks, Colligo has a couple new bits of hardware that haven't made the catalogue yet, and the "VX One Design" has a couple nifty hardware solutions that could be applied to an i550- their sliding shoe GNAV is very slick. Bainbridge says they're beginning to stock some of Marlow's D12 Max 78 & 90 in small diameters- this is basically the same kind of rope as Dynex Dux, similarly heat-set and pre-stretched, but in 2.5, 3m and 4 mm sizes, versus Dux's 5mm minimum size. I'm thinking top-mast shrouds at 3mm myself, I'm sure there are other uses as well.

Edit:

added a fill and fairing coat.

On top of the glass, the rule for me is no more West Microlight, just phenolic micro balloons. This coat is about like mayonnaise- basically as thick as I can get it, while still being spread-able with a chip brush with the bristles cut to half length. If I've done a decent job of fairing the deck underneath, I should be able to sand about 75% of this coating off. So I've got that to look forward to...