Hi guys, welcome back aboard Spiffy—our 44-foot hurricane-damaged Antares 44 catamaran. This week I wrapped up the little gelcoat-crazing experiment I started on our two sugar scoop hatches. After sanding off the crazed gelcoat, I laid up a layer of glass to stabilize the surface, faired everything with TotalBoat TotalFair, primed, and then rolled on Alexseal topcoat. Yes, I sand primer—because any roller texture you leave in the primer will telegraph right through your topcoat. Also: wipe and flip. The goal is to remove contaminants, not just smear them around. Once the paint was down, I tested a non-skid option for the rest of the deck: Soft Sand. I sprinkled it into wet paint (instead of mixing it in) and did coarse/medium/fine strips on the high-traffic hatch, with medium on the other hatch. Even with a little “Captain Dum-Dum” moment where I mixed up grits, it came out looking pretty freaking awesome—and it’s easy to recover and reuse the extra grit. I also checked out a yard test boat where crazing came back hard (especially under dark paint), which pretty much reinforced why I’m glassing over the surface instead of just priming and painting. To round out the week, I started prepping for a water tank replacement that’s tucked under the head module. That meant pulling both diesel tanks and figuring out a bulkhead strategy—my “two-step rocket” plan to form a flange first, then bond the bulkhead back in after the new tank goes in. Cutting the access hole is next week’s problem.