Trawler Selection Tips - Brightwork

When I am assisting customers looking for their perfect trawler, one of the things I coach them on is how to judge the care given to the boat by her present owner. There are simple things I use to judge the care given with even boarding the vessel.

Most trawlers have exterior brightwork. This teak, if kept to a high level of gloss, is what gives the boat its character; it gives her that salty look.

The photo is a handrail on my trawler, the Patricia Ann. I started her spring commissioning last weekend and managed to sand her teak hand rails down and get three coats of Cetol on them. Looks pretty good so far huh? The rest of my trawler looks just as good. You can read how I maintain the brightwork on my trawler here.

So when I am with a customer and we are looking at a trawler for the first time, I suggest to my customers that generally, you can tell how the rest of the boat looks by how the brightwork looks. If the brightwork is in great shape, you can almost assume the rest of the trawler will be the same.

Here is a photo of the finished product with high gloss top coat.

The arrow is pointing to a small piece of metal, probably steel embedded in the wood. Based upon its shape, I suspect it was a piece of shrapnel that hit the tree in the 1940s.