Restoring the Captains Chair

The first captains chair installed by Prout Catamarans on the Cats PJs didn't last very long and soon fell apart. We then substituted our own chair later on which served us well. However, corrosion at the base had progressed to a point where we had to refinish or replace it. So we removed it early in 2000 and started to repaint it.

To our great initial surprise, cheap clear silicone was NOT used to seal this chair to the deck. Then I found out from my father that this was not the Prout Catamarans supplied chair so things made sense again. The hole below (as usual) penetrates unprotected balsa core between fiberglass layers. However, the installer of the second chair was generous enough with the sealant to ensure that no water made it into the core.

The base of the chair was stripped down to the bare metal with a sandblaster before being prepped and repainted with a rubberized epoxy paint. The base now looks like new (see left). We expect a good number of extra years out of this base.

We have refinished nearly all hull penetrations with water barrier epoxy coatings. As time allows in the future, I plan to refinish most penetrations with real epoxy plugs.