About a month ago, motivated by 1) photos of beautiful flooring in other Hatteras yachts, including MikeP's 53MY, and no, I can't afford to buy it for the floor, and he doesn't hire out, sadly 2) the shabby state of the carpet in the salon of my 36C, I decided to put a new floor in my boat. After some thinking and inspection of various samples on the boat, I decided on Lonseal in a mahongany and holly look- obviously, this is not real wood, but it will match fairly well, and be a lot easier to clean and maintain. Carpet doesn't seem to last a long time. We have enough to do the salon and the head. The carpet in the galley and stateroom has held up well enough, since it isn't in the sun ever and doesn't get walked on as much.

So today, with my installer otherwise occupied and too busy to return phone calls, and the day off, I began removing the carpet. Under the carpet, as it turns out, is vinyl flooring- possibly even two layers of it, over what looks like 3/4" plywood. I'm not sure this is in good enough shape to put the Lonseal on top of. Since the hatches were trimmed to allow the carpet to wrap downwards and staple to the side of each hatch, they are also loose and will have to have wood strips added to them at least on some sides, so that they won't rattle and so there won't be visible gaps between them.

I can tell already that this job will be the gift that keeps on taking, not giving. This will be interesting. It will certainly solve the problem of what to do with my spare time for the next few weeks.