The engine room hatch

Glala has a splendid engine room and a large hatch. When we took custody of her however the hatch was languishing under the boat exposed to the weather, exposed to whatever was leaking from the engine room, a dirty, sorry sight. We covered it, drained the engine room bilges and left it there, until early this year when we heaved it up onto the deck (under the ‘tent’) so that we could start work on it. The windows had already been taken back to the workshop to be sanded there. The sliding hatch and the little door had also been sanded and oiled so the main hatch now had to be dealt with.

The photos below are a gallery so by clicking on one it will enlarge and you can scroll through the rest using the arrows.

Scraping the old varnish and sanding both sides took a lot of effort but so worth the broken nails and dust everywhere. We then oiled the top and the inside twice and carefully lifted it back over the engine room. Possibly the first time in 12 years it has been in the right place! Wow! It is pretty! It is also really big. The rearward view from the wheelhouse is fairly restricted now, and when the funnel goes back on…

But so worthwhile and the last of the fiddly sanding for a while at least.