Noakes – Awlgrip spit and polish with a spot of antifouling

As we entered the second week on the hard it was time to tackle the antifouling and chance our arm cleaning the Alwgrip topsides with Awlwash followed by Awlcare. The antifouling task was taken care of by Noakes under their winter special deal, which was great as it left us free to do other things…




The biggest “other thing” in terms of physical labour was the spit and polish job on Lucey Blue’s 168 feet of Alwgrip topsides – its great owning a 42 foot catamaran at moments like these!!!!

The paint job itself is in pretty good shape - Hinkley Yacht Services painted Lucey Blue using a 50 50 mix of Flag Blue and Aristo Blue in 2005. But since the boat was out of the water we thought we would see if we could improve the surface and extend its life.

The first step was to wash the boat using Awlwash and then remove any built up salt using vinegar. The wash itself was pretty quick, but there was some pretty amazing salt deposits under the bridge deck which extended the job well into the night…..



With the boat clean and all traces of salt removed it was time to apply the Awlcare - a protective polymer sealer formulated to protect and remove mild stains from Awlgrip. The sealer is simple to apply and after the normal “wax on wax off” routine the results were pretty impressive (the Karate Kid has nothing on us)!



Water now beads off the topsides and with a bit of luck the Awlcare sealer will last until our next haul out. If you are ever considering a similar job the "Maintaining an Awlgrip, Awlcraft 2000 or Awlgrip HS Topcoat" page is worth a read......