Cleaning The 40 Year Old Non-Skid

The new fuel tank was in and I had caught up with just about everything except the leaky windows when my grungy deck got the best of me. I got out the cleaning supplies; 409, 505, BKF, Simple Green, Comet, CLR, toilet bowl cleaner, Collinite Fiberglass Cleaner, Joy, ammonia, Spic N Span, Glass Plus --  I tried everything on the dirty gelcoat...but alas in the end after all the rubbing and scrubbing, the non-skid still held tenaciously to the dirt and grime.

Went to the store to restock my brew after working up a scrubbing sweat in the heat, and 'scoured' the cleaning isle for perhaps an exotic 'solution'. Came up empty and in desperation grabbed a gallon of bleach on my way out with the beer.

Up on the flybridge, I sloshed a splash of bleach on the still gray deck. I let it soak into the porous gelcoat and after 20 seconds or so the bleach yellowed. I watched a small overflow stream as it found it's way to the edge of the sundeck and it ran off, leaving a narrow moist trail on the deck. Much to my amazement, that sliver of wetness whitened as it dried. Damn, just the magic I had been looking for.

Then the experimenting began. Would the full strength bleach work on it's own to clean the deck? I found that brushing the raw bleach into the deck didn't get results, but a light scrub with just about any cleaner, followed by application of the bleach made me very, very happy.

And when she is finally clean...bow, transom, sides, flybridge and all, will I do the wax on, wax off thing to make her shine like new? Hell no! A quick wipe with  Turtle Wax Ice is what she'll get, especially knowing that I can bring her back with minimal effort and a $2 gallon of bleach.