Derustification - Two Great Ways Not To Spend Money!

 Stuff gets old, and on a boat stuff gets old fast.  Lot's of times, we've found ourselves in a position where we need to simply replace things on the boat.  That gets a bit old, so its always nice when you can find a way to fix something.  And....its really nice when you can bring something back to almost new condition at the same time.

Before

After

De-rustification
Last winter, almost overnight we noticed that our 10 year old chain was beginning to rust and rust badly.  I was ready to throw it away and purchase replacement chain when someone mentioned that I should look into the possibility of having it re-galvanized.  Well it turned out that I could get the chain re-galvanized for 30% of the cost of replacement.  Not a bad deal.  The chain is back onboard now and I can't tell the difference between it and brand new.  A big win!

Before

After

Dinghy Reconditioning
This one had the potential of being a multi thousand dollar problem.  Instead, it was solved with a $60 solution.

Our dinghy had started to lose its protective coating and the "fabric" had started to melt away in the sun.  It got to the point where everytime you sat down on the pontoons you were basically planting your rear end in something resembling contact cement!  Not good.

After a bunch of research I decided to try re-coating the dinghy with a special "rubberized paint" designed for use on the materials used in dinghy construction.  It was down to that or an expensive replacement.  The boat was still holding air very well and performing just as it did when new.

As it turns out, the repainting was great!!  As far as we are concerned that dinghy is almost as good as new and it looks like we'll get a couple more good years out of her!