Vera - LLV (Laurinlahden Venekerho)

And once again we're seaborn! Because of the COVID-19 situation, our Captain Keijo did all the work himself! The crew embarked later in the evening, with lots of joy!

During this Winter the tarpaulin protection have caused some dark stains on the boat. Well, let's see if a magic sponge would make the trick? Good enough!    

During 2012-2013 we decided to get rid of all the old bottom paint. However that was project way harder than expected, therefore we decided to get professional help and get it sand blasted. However, now this season in 2020 when we took away the jetty we realized the "sand blaster guy" have missed some spots as he hadn't taken away the jetty.   So when Kalle has taken care of the wooden parts (jetty and stairs) Keijo has re-done the bottom surface and painted those exposed spots.  

Just before Christmas 2011 Petter, together with friends, had taken up our new boat, during the Winter it should be inside at one small ship yard's garage. Now when the boat finally was up from the sea we could get a better look at the bottom. Petter wrote: " Kalle! Här kommer lite bilder på båten. Det finns lite att göra i botten för er nästa år. Skall försöka få bort rosten från badstegen när båten kommer in i värmen. Den nya masten är under behandling. Massiv teak, som kommer att oljas. Hej! Petter " We decided at that time it would be better to have a shorter mast. We also realized there would be loads of hard work to get rid of the layers of layers of layers of bottom paint. And after the first Finnish season we realized we needed professional help to get rid of all the old paint!

The Swedish photographer Tore Hagman have done a lot of very nice photo books, one in particular is from the Swedish West Coast ( Västkust : från Nidingen till Koster ), published both in Swedish and English. There is some pictures from the hometown of Skäreläja and skipper Kalle (author of this blog, LLV member 809). And actually, most likely this Vera Skäreläja is on this picture. And if we take a closer look at the picture there's two interesting boats to have a closer look at. On the docks in front left, there's a wooden boat that belonged to Kalle back then. And on the Marstrand Island, almost in the middle of the picture you'll find "Vera LLV".   Keijo, captain and owner of Vera (LLV member 226), bought Vera in the Autumn of 2011. Kalle's father Petter did all the research and helped with the buying. Here's one of the first reports Petter sent back to us in Finland: Tyvärr glömde jag att fota toan, men den sitter i aktern. Finns holdingtank med tömn...

Another small project before this summer season, bath stairs and jetty looked like it had seen its better days. Unfortunately over the years there has been both teak oil as teak lacquer as protection, this year we have tried to refurbish it from scratch! First off with all old varnish, then clean the teak in two steps. And now, the final step with oil. And the wood is really soaking the oil! Products bought from Motonet and worked really nice! Our boat look very sad without the jetty I must say. The footsteps to the bath stair, quite an improvement! And here's the jetty, before and "after" (still oiling it, it still soak in a lot)

Back in 2013 we bought new milled nameplates, however when looking in the mirror the manufacturer probably had missed one or two layers lacquer in the finish. The signs has more and more looked pretty awful and now we're trying to fix that problem. However it might not be the easiest thing to undertake when we understood the challenge. The manufacturer have probably painted with two component varnish all over till all layers were set. After that he painted the white and lightly sanded so that the edge between white and wood became sharp, then finished with clear lacquer over everything. Even though the lacquer is off we now have a slightly problem as two components have been a bit hard to find and a one component lacquer will turn the white yellow... And somehow we need to get a protection over the edge between the white paint and the wood...