Since starting this project I have been giving a lot of thought on how to finish the deck, thwarts etc – the green bits.

Just painting everything white floor paint would be economical, simple to do and keep tidy. I was concerned however about compatibility and how long it would last and if the worn away the green would show through like a sore thumb .

Try to match would be more costly but marine paint would be more compatible and robust. It would also look more authentic and just felt right.

So Sunday night I ordered a litre of Teamac Marine Gloss. Using a phone app I chose RAL6019 – pastel green.

I have used this paint before so it wasn’t a risk. It is modified long oil alkyd marine coating so ticks all the boxes for this application. I purchased from rawlinspaints.com and despite only paying for economy 7-10 working days delivery it arrived in 3 days. It did need signing for and luckily a neighbour took it in.

Having deciding to go this route I decided to have one more go at filling in the hundreds of dinks, knocks, scratches and cracks. I find in the heat of having live filler on the go I find I miss many areas that need filling. So armed with some stickers I found as many areas for filling I could, I still missed some.

Tonight I sanded back the port bow and whole of the starboard side and gave the paint a quick test.

The quick test was just done with a brush, I’ll use a 3 inch foam roller for the real coats. The colour match is not as close as I would have liked but there is a great variation throughout the deck / thwart area and, importantly, I like the colour and it feels authentic. It covers well but reveals even more defects but I’m not going to chase them anymore.