This is something that every radio sailing newcomer will worry about the very first time they encounter it … Natural enough!

First let’s separate application of Hull Numbers and Deck Patches.

Hull Numbers :-

These are delicate little pieces of tape and you’ll want a gentle way to apply them. The safest and most effective we found was to use the famous trick of water mixed with washing up liquid. You really need to have this mixture highly diluted. The way to know if you have the correct dilution is that you want just enough soap that when you apply the mixture to the deck it leaves a smear – a constant, uninterrupted, watery film. If the surface tension leaves you with little rivulets and dry patches, then you don’t have quite enough washing up liquid in there. We are talking of tiny amounts of water and soap here – maybe a tablespoon or two of water a a few drops of washing up liquid..

Remember – this will take at least overnight to dry in quite a warm room, but the upside is that you get plenty of time to wiggle the numbers around on the slippery surface to get them looking their best.

Deck Patches :-

Deck Patches are altogether more robust and you get more choices of how to apply them. Basically dry application, water based application, or with soapy water.

It helps a real lot to get the patches cut accurately and you can read our earlier article about this here. If you get a new set of patches with the boat, make a traced paper copy for your records straight away.

Deck Patch Templates – The Easy Way !

For myself, I have tried (1) dry application (honestly quite tricky and on Race day most likely this is how you will do it….). (2) Soapy water as in the section above on Hull Numbers – easy, but needs time to dry.

I had not considered just using water, but have you seen this super little video on applying patches with water from Zvonko??

Hidden in the middle of this video, Zvonko makes a surprising assertion that Black Patches and White Patches are better at keeping moisture out than the other colours.

Interesting – I’d not heard that before, but Zvonko is Zvonko (!!) – it’s as if a god speaks to you directly !! You have to pay it some attention. 🙂

Then this is Zvonko’s video of how to apply patches in the dry… the key benefit being not needing time to dry off.

You’ll want to practice this for yourself … in a private, soundproof room with a swear-box to hand.