Painting a Narrowboat

The nice weather has finally arrived and so the re-paint of Nb Valerie has begun.
The front deck has the V-Deck style of matting (pic right). it`s been down for nine years and as you can see the top surface to the left of the picture is in good condition. The right hand side shows the side that presses against the deck as we step on and move around. Real tough stuff that certainly can take some punishment. Not sure if these are still manufactured as a

Google search fails to find the V-Deck name. Perhaps they were expensive and cheaper products took the sales.
The main problem is they dig into the deck paint and cause rust. Although perhaps after nine years and the fact the deck paint might not have been suitable in the first place may have contributed.
I used an angle grinder fitted with a flapping disc to remove the paint and loose rust.

Next it had a coat of rust converter.

The first coat of paint was International floor paint that dried within two hours but needed, so the blurb says, five days to fully harden.
Time is something we have plenty of so letting it harden was not a problem.
A quick light sand gave it a key to receive two top coats of a smooth metal finish paint similar to Hammerite. I left it two days before putting the matting back down. Time will tell if the paint is tough enough.

The front deck broke the monotonous job of sanding the boat. we now have two sides sanded with rust spots filled and sanded twice but still needing minor attention. The bow and stern have yet to be tackled but as I said time is something we have plenty of and Jaq and I have no intention of doing this day after day.