Having varnished two of the seven bottom boards and the three washboards, I turned my attention to the remaining boards. Sanded the upper surfaces to get a key and then on with a coat of varnish.

Here they are with the first coat applied.

Only the observant among you will have noticed that there are only four boards here. These plus the two I've already done means that there is one missing.

It is the companion board to this one. This is the port side cockpit bottom board and the one for the starboard side is missing. I looked high and low for it. I definitely wasn't in the boat and I could not see it in the workshop. Eventually I had a look in the storage container just to satisfy myself that I wouldn't have put it there and guess where it was?

Yes, indeed, on a shelf with some other boat stuff. 

I whipped out the sandpaper gave the top side a quick sand, realised that I had the thing upside down and had just sanded the underside, turned it over and sanded the real top side and gave it a coat of varnish.

Now here's an odd thing. I'm running out of halfway decent 1" brushes so I decided to put on the first coat with some really bad disposable brushes that I normally use for spreading glue. I was fairly astonished to find that these brushes applied the varnish far better than the more expensive ones I had been using. Not the real varnish brushes that I just bought, those ones give an astounding finish. No, the ones I had been using are reasonable ones from Silverline.

Here is the board with its first coat. A lovely finish, no bubbles, or very few, and I could use the same brush to tip off the varnish after applying the coat. How strange. I think I'll use these brushes for the varnish in future.

The only problem is that I'm running out of those as well!

Time for a cup of tea.