While sitting in my driveway, which I'm sure my neighbours loved, first I took apart everything that could be on the boat. Actually all the dudes on the street stopped to chat about the boat, so turns out it was a good conversation starter. The rub rail was garbage, as was anything else plastic or mechanical. I did keep all the eye hooks, Norman pins and anything else chrome, which can probably be cleaned up and re-used.
Once I had everything removed, it was off to the coin car wash to power wash 10 years of dirt and grime.
After I had her all cleaned up, I started grinding and sanding...a lot of sanding. Using a Dremel tool and a grinder bit, I widened every crack on the top side of the boat as well as the transom. I also ground out any larger issues in the top side fibreglass so that it would take the epoxy fairing compound later. With all the cracks ground out, I used a random orbital sander to sand every inch of the top side using 120 grit. Did this to mostly to smooth out any blemishes, but also so the top side would take the primer. This took a few full days to complete, probably 4 full days over a couple of weekends.
The fairing compound was awesome to use - real easy mixing 1:1 of the blue and yellow 2 part compounds. I think I used too much to start, as I was sanding a lot of it down once hardened.
Top side is mostly structurally completed now, next step is to get the boat turned over to work on the hull.
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