After three years of constant cruising, Tulum had a few cosmetic challenges that needed to be fixed by experts. Since I don’t have much of a background in perfect boat cosmetics, I called on an expert here at Shelter Bay Marina to bring in his crew and help out with this precision work. Remember, this was done several months ago but I’m just now getting to the story. I like to learn and I like to do my own boat work when I have the knowledge, tools and parts to do the job right. So, in hiring a professional crew to come on my boat and help with these cosmetic repairs, I also made a commitment to learn from those guys so I could do it in the future. I learned how important the paint matching was to make fiberglass shine and I learned that I DIDN’T have the right tool set onboard to do the repair myself; but I promptly ordered a quality Dremel set from Uncle Amazon. Yes, Tulum is for sale and we wanted her to look great, but I also think that these kind of cosmetic repairs MUST be done every once in awhile just to keep the boat up and looking decent. So here’s some of the story in photos:
My Take: I don’t always do everything perfectly around the boat but love folks who can come onboard as experts and help with some of the detail sometimes, especially in trades I don’t have experience with. Fiberglass, dremel work and paint-matching are not things I do that well, but I have much respect for those craftspeople who can do the work well. I take every opportunity to watch and learn and I’m much more comfortable with Dremel work after seeing it be done for three days on the boat. Plus, it was alot of “bang for the buck”, as the work quickly fixed some of Tulum’s cosmetic spots and made her shine in places that were a bit rough before the work.
Tulum-5 is a functional, heavily built and timeless sailboat/motorsailer that’s in great shape but always a work in progress. We continued to love and improve her as we go.
We continue waiting on promised engine work, delayed until early January through no fault of our own. Frustrations come and go, but the care of our boat is always on our minds because she’s our home and we treat her like part of the family.
LF2SF is a website run and managed from a cruising sailboat, currently in Panama. Got questions, comments etc? Send them to us, we love our readers!
One Response
She looks Beautiful. Merry Christmas to all of u. Hopefully 2023 brings promised mechanics