No More Bottoming Out

Since purchasing Moonshine, she has been dogged with pronounced brown staining on her forward coach roof and side decks which had gotten progressively worse over recent months. 
Numerous expensive (both marine and non marine) products have been used to eradicate this staining to little avail. However, after trolling through the internet for remedies we have discovered a 'miracle cure' in Oxalic Acid powder, purchased from Ebay for less than £10. The trick is to NOT follow the manufacturers instructions as this didn't work very well, but to mix a strong solution with wallpaper paste to a nice thick consistency which will not in turn evaporate, and apply with a paint brush on a nice calm cool day. The solution was left for a few hours, and then washed off. It is imperative this solution is NOT allowed to dry, as this would then become difficult to remove.

The staining lifts off into the glue solution, and Moonshine is once again a gleaming example of a Seawings 355.





We have now received our new saloon upholstery back from Marine and Industrial Covers Lincoln, in the requested Buff Ultra Leather. Apart from the colour contrast, the new foam in the base seat cushions makes the seating a lot more comfortable than the old, so no more bottoming out, and she looks pretty smart to.



In addition to the work already undertaken in the bathroom area (see previous blog) we decided to use some left over teak and holly laminate flooring (left over from the saloon a few years ago) for the very small floor area forward of the shower to improve the look further. This was templated up last week and we are just waiting for all the glue to set at home prior to installation next week. Being the sad cases that we are, whenever a Seawings comes on the sale market we always save the photos and sale description for future reference,thus enabling us to utilize ideas from different vessels as every boat built had slight differences. Some of which we have implemented such as adding a port light in the rear cabin for additional ventilation from the wheelhouse. We think most of the newer versions of the 355 had the teak and holly on the bathroom floor, but we were only able to track down one photo where the wide angled lens had gotton most of the small bathroom area in shot. From this we were able to judge how successful it would be to replicate this ourselves. Obviously it has to be done correctly whilst upholding our Seawings integrity, as once it is bonded to the fibreglass floor there is certainly no going back...