Our Awlgrip nonskid decks are 10 years old and have been too slick to call safe anymore. It got to the point that we would not go forward on wet decks without Crocs. While we love Awlgrip, we decided to give Kiwigrip a try.

Why Kiwigrip? First, it was recommended by a fellow cruiser who said it was great stuff. We research it. Price is still high like Awlgrip. Like most products it has pros & cons. We were sold on it being a water base product, easy to keep clean, long lasting, one part paint, easy clean up, most important difference from Awlgrip (for us) is that it is suppose to be easy to touch up. Awlgrip's touch ups are always noticeable. Time will tell if our reasons for choosing Kiwigrip hold true.

While Richard worked on his mechanical projects, I sanded. Yes, I swore I was through with sanding, but it was easy sanding with a vibrating sander to just take off the highs and blemishes from the deck. Basically a good cleaning.

After a couple of cool evenings of sanding, I moved on to a couple of cool evenings of taping. We checked the weather to make sure no rain was forecasted and picked a couple of painting days. The night before painting day I cleaned the sanded areas with a degreaser product.

What we decided for color was to mix 50/50 Kiwigrip white & grey. We wanted the two toned look this time, but didn't want a stark difference. Something that would soften the suns's bright glare on white. We like the light grey we made.

We woke at 6am on paint day to work in the cool of the morning. Here in Puerto Rico it is too hot to paint by 9am. Kiwigrip begins to dry and set quickly, more so in warmer climates.
We began with the forward port square of the deck. Richard used one of my large SS serving spoons to plop spoonfuls of the thick goopy paint on the deck. Then he used a 3/8" grooved trowel to spread the paint. I followed him with the special texture roller provided by Kiwigrip. We kept close to each other, not having Richard get too far ahead. No more than 2-3 feet. Working backwards towards the stern. Once we finished the first square. We felt like this was going to be alright. Good thing, don't ya think? We finished the forward starboard square, then we proceeded to take up the masking tape. We had read and been told to make sure to take up the tape while the paint is still wet, or else the dried rubbery paint will just peel right up with the tape. This is so contradictory to what I know about painting. I insisted that we at least finish the two squares before peeling the tape off. It DOES begin to pull the paint. It wasn't too late, and it turned out fine. A few spots could have been better.

By the time we finished carefully taking up the messy paint covered tape, it was beginning to warm. We had noticed the paint was beginning to dry & set faster, so we called it a day. We easily cleaned up our tools with water, and by 9am I was cooking bacon & eggs.

The next morning we repeated the exact same procedure for the two midship squares. The only thing we did different was to peel the tape off the first square before going on to the second one. Worked better this time.

Again by 9am...bacon & eggs!