Compounding the topsides with an electric buffer. If you do this, make sure you use the correct tool for the job. If you were to fit a coumpounding pad to an angle grinder, you'd burn the gelcoat and have great difficulty contolling the tool. We managed to get a new Silverline buffer off eBay for £40 and it's superb. We found the blue foam compounding pads work a treat, much better than the lambswool bonnets. Don't even attempt this using one of the cheap car polishers from Halfords, it just won't work.

A view of the topsides after compounding. Not bad considering there's no polish or wax applied. If your boat's gelcoat has worn thin I wouldn't attempt this job.

This is the 3m Imperial polishing compound we used and can highly recommend. This will only work with an electric buffer, it would be a complete wate of time attempting to do the job by hand. We got this off eBay for £10, which is half the chandlery price.

A view of the hull after compounding and Poliglowing. Having used Poliglow for three seasons now, we can thoroughly recommend this product. It will last all season, just need a quick wash to shine again, and best of all, no waxing! There is a link to the Poliglow website in the boating links section of this website. The rubbing strakes have since had a light rub down and two extra coats of varnish - we do this every year.

Marina Poliglowing Cassie's topsides. Good job she's not affraid of heights! The ageing rubber around the windows caused the usual black streaking problems, but they're on the list of jobs to do this season.

Marina discovered that Poliglow works well on fenders too...

Another shot of Marina Poliglowing. The sponge pad wrapped in a chamois leather is the tool used for application. And the small piece of chamois is used to Poliglow around fiddly areas.

Just some of our eBay booty awaiting fitting. The canopy sliders cost us £1.99! We got two recently re-chromed cleats and two fairleads for £26. Our best buy was the mast light, we've been after a mast light for ages with no luck. We got the clear and the green one for £10.50. They're very high quality, even better than the original Freeman fittings, chrome over very heavy bronze. We will strip the paint from the inside of the green one so we've got a spare clear glass. The fuel filler is just in case we drop our filler cap in the river!

A close up of our new mast light - we're well chuffed with it!

Cassie's mast fitted with her new mast light. We had to saw the top spigot off the mast, due to the different method of fitting. The sawn end was then coated with epoxy resin to waterproof the vulnerable end-grain. The light was then mounted on a bed of mastic tape.

As you can see the light is a perfect size for the mast. It's a very heavy fitting, and dare we say it, looks better than the original Freeman item. Not bad as we only paid £10 for two on eBay!