Commander Manuals

[Stephan]

Well, thanks Commanderpete and Eric,

your advice is very helpful to me. I thought I would have to grind down the whole area around the gouges, but what you suggests sounds way easier. I'll try this Saturday.

And then I'll have to decide which color to paint her with. I hear you, Eric, about the tropics, but if you know Chicago you know that too much sun is not really a problem here. And if the Commander isn't a classic, what is?

Why is it hard to maintain a nice finish on a dark blue hull? I would have thought (forgive my naivity) that dirt shows up easier on a white hull. And of course I would keep a can or two in reserve to fix future scratches. On the other hand, if I switch to white, wouldn't I have to apply 6 or more coats to get coverage?

Now, as promised, my next few questions. Since this is my first boat, I have no problems asking the silliest things! In the first attached picture, the gooseneck 'eye' seems to be on the bottom of the boom. What's the eye for anyway? In a picture of the gooseneck, posted by you commanderpete, the eye is pointing up. Is the boom wrong side up? The track on the boom is currently on the bottom of it, should it be on top?

The next picture shows the boards and the port winch. I plan to sand and varnish/paint the boards. What do you recommend?
As for the winch, maybe I can get chromium onto it again? I seem to remember that some places offer to do that, for a price I'm sure...

Lastly, here is the portlight and the missing rubrail. The plexiglass in the portlight is pretty bad, did you guys ever try to replace the glass only? And, as you notice, I have a missing piece of rubrail (about 1 yard). Need to get that, too. but it alloed me to see the hull-deck joint (in this area, at least, and it looks fine...)

Thanks you guys, Stephan