Cleaning Dorads - no rain flap 2015

So, we are cleaning up the boat little by little after months of neglect on the cleaning front. The re-power and new teak and holy sole along with the re-upholster and a long winter has taken its toll.

June 2011 - Chip & Debbie 💑 Currently in Marina Cortez ⛵ in San Diego, SoCal

 We took off the dorads to clean them up and to see what makes them tick. There is no flap to close, to prevent the rain from coming in (1978 Freeport). 

 There is a piece of plexus glass that the water hits and is supposed to roll off and then be let out by the holes in the bottom of the dorad base. It does not work well. The bottom of the base is pushed up a bit by design leaving hardly and depth for water to collect and so it then flows into down the dorad. Also I bet the water goes around the plexus glass and streams into the dorad.

 The fix we have been using is to put a plastic bag in them when it rains. We will change that to a snerf ball or some other nice object.

 We use Whitley's white wall cleaner (also on the lifelines) and some soft scrub a brush and scrub pad.

 The real fix is to get new SS dorads and bases that have a water preventer flap.

Any way they are now mostly clean. Because we neglected them the red paint we put on a year or so ago in stained with jet fuel from the airport. We could not get it all off. So they will require a new paint job. Not a big deal but then again it is a redo when we are doing a lot of new does 😆

All clean!