Questions: Refinishing the Decks and Cabin topsides.

[Yeti]

Hello All,

I am working on a "paint the topsides (not including hull) project" on my Cascade 36 and have some questions or thoughts to throw out there about this.

This project stared because it was obvious that the cabin top had some areas that needed work. Paint was chipping, there are small areas of obvious delam between the plywood core and the top shell, and one area has some softness that needs to be checked for rot/wetness. I also need/want to rebed all the deck penetration areas. Lastly the whole topside is 90% covered in a glued on non-slip material that has been slowly coming up and is fairly unsightly.

I've currently done with about 90% of the work in the cockpit and have moved on the main cabintop. In pulling the pulling the traveler and other things bolted through the decks I've noticed that the topside is basically thick plywood (pretty sure its 3/4") with one layer of thin woven roving on the top. There isn't any fiberglass on the inside. The plywood is just painted white and looks fairly nice overall. There also doesn't really appear to be any gelcaoat on top and if its there its a fairly thin layer. It is obvious that the topsides have been redone at least twice before this project and maybe that why the gelcoat is thin.

My main plan was to just get the non slip stuff off and repaint after repairing the previously mentioned small areas and sealing all the deck penetrations. Now I'm starting to wonder if I should maybe sand down to the fiberglass and do another layer of roving before finshing up.

Any thoughts? Suggestions? I'm all ears...