The cabin sole on my Contessa 32 has a lot of nicely varnished hardwood-faced ply joinery.

But part of the sole is on a slope which doesn’t help when walking from the saloon to the heads and vice versa.

Fed up with slipping and sliding on the varnish, I decided to add a non-slip finish while still maintaining as much of the ‘wood’ look as possible.

The non-slip solution

In the past I’d read articles where people had used sugar to achieve a ‘dimpled’ non-slip surface to add some grip.

I gave that a try as an experiment, but didn’t like the sticky mess that resulted from the sugar.

Instead, I experimented using dishwasher salt and determined that the sharper and slightly larger crystals gave a much better result.

My approach was to first sand down the sole boards and then apply three coats of good quality varnish (I use Epiphanes).

Next, I masked off the boards to define the areas to have the non-slip finish applied.

The masked off areas were then given a further two coats of varnish.

Masking tape applied, ready for the application of non-slip. Photo by Colin King

Once dry, a further coat of varnish was added and immediately a generous coating of salt crystals was sprinkled evenly all over and pressed gently onto the wet varnish before being left to dry for a couple of days.

Once the varnish was dry, I brushed and vacuumed off any loose, excess salt crystals. With the loose salt removed, the remaining crystals were dissolved away using warm water.

The result is that the treated areas were darker than those that were simply varnished, but the wood was still clearly visible through the mottled surface.

Non-slip mottled finish on a sole board. Photo by Colin King

I ended up with four spare bags of salt crystals as every one was in opaque packaging which meant I couldn’t simply pick the one packet with crystals the size I was happy with!

Liked this article about adding non-slip to your cabin floors?

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