Magnolia recently went through a mid-life restoration. Her decks are a layer of fiberglass, wood, fiberglass. After 25 years moisture has caused the wood core to become soft and weaken. We hired Osprey Composites (http://www.ospreycomposites.com/) in Deale, MD to replace about 13 feet of deck on each side of the cockpit.
They first cut and peeled back the top layer of fiberglass. As you can see the wood decking below is completely compromised.
The second step was to clean out all of the old rotten wood.
Once the old wood core was removed the core replaced with a new foam core. “J” did most all of the work on Magnolia!
It begs the question why they used wood in the first place??
After the core was in place layers of fiberglass was built up on top of foam core.
Once the fiberglass was in place a layer of leveling compound and the deck was sanded smooth and level.
While things were getting done on deck, down below the hull was compounded and waxed.
Once the wax was done it was time to get the bottom sanded and painted.
After the fiberglass was complete a coat of gel was applied.
Followed by a thorough sanding and buffing. Finally the non-skid was laid down
Magnolia was splashed and we began cleaning her up and moving back aboard. We could not be more pleased with the work that Osprey did. The completed the work on schedule and on budget.
After 5 weeks Magnolia is ready to go, and we are off!
Magnolia will be racing south staying ahead of the snow flakes! We have reports from CT, MI and NY that the flakes have fallen there….that is NOT that far from here!!! Time to go!!
Magnolia looks beautiful and ready to take you anywhere. Anywhere but north at this time of year! Safe travels, dear friends – we will be following you, virtually, this year.
Dude, they didn’t use foam back when Liberty and Magnolia were built because they didn’t HAVE foam back then!!! We (okay, maybe just me, and not young studs like you) and Morgans of the 1980s are relics of a bygone era, built sturdily, if not exotically, but Classics!