On our Hans Christian 38 we started with bare
wood and built up a base of 3 coats of regular cetol and 2 coats of cetol gloss. Then we apply one coat of cetol gloss every year in
San Francisco. In
Mexico we had to do a coat of gloss twice a year. We got lots of compliments on our brightwork and the key in my opinion is using cetol gloss on top.
The thing I love about cetol is that if you let it go too long you can usually just sand and build it back up with some regular cetol topped with gloss without having to go back to bare
wood. With all the varnish I've used once you let it go too long you have to go back to bare wood. On our Hans Christian going back to bare wood was about 60 hours of
work.
Cetol has much better coloring than it did in the 90's when it had a very bright orange look to it. You can still tell the difference from varnish up close but like a haircut, if it looks great from a few feet away it's good enough for me!
Todd