: Ross: I saw a post a few weeks ago lamenting that your boat is turning
: brown.. Any thoughts?

I can only hypothesize that there was something other than UV that caused the tanning on my OI -or- that it takes very little UV to do it. I had 3 coats of Flagship varnish on the deck when I got the strap lines. The boat was sitting in direct sun all day long.

So, whether you have varnish applied or not, you may get some darkening/lightening if the boat sits in the sun for any length of time. Perhaps varnish may reduce the effect, but apparently won't eliminate it.

However, if you're worried about protecting the epoxy, you can paddle a while without varnishing. It could take months before you'd detect any degradation/clouding of the epoxy.

So, go have fun at R2K1. If you have to keep the boat in the sun, try to keep any straps off the deck, so if you do have some color change, it will be uniform.

Ross