I have discovered the hard (& dumb) way that varnish is just stupid for gunwales unless you love to spend your life on upkeep. The PO of my boat used boiled linseed oil, but it ended up so dark you could barely tell it was timber, but there must be other oil finishes that are more suitable. Being gunwales, they don't have to gleam like French polished antiques, but I do want to have a wooden finish that looks reasonably nice and is (relatively) low maintenance. I don't want the grey paling-fence look, even though this is the easiest.

Coelan gets great rave reviews, but it would cost nearly $500 for the materials to do my 2 x 7m gunwales. I would really like to hear what others use. I'm in Melbourne so the UV load is significant, but not like FNQ.

Cheers, Graeme