Planned works for the winter...

Quite a lot of works planned for the boat during the winter, here's some of them listed... Hopefully we are able to get everything done before we splash the boat again

1.

Electronics: Install B&G Vulcan 7 chartplotter. Flush-mounted to the angled part of the deck behind Stbd. primary winch. At first the idea was to have one display on both sides of the wheel but just one should do well as the main purpose for this display is to have something to help with navigation when shorthanded in archipelago/shallow water. When the chartplotter is not needed it can be used to track windshifts, performance data, etc... The main Nav. station is still downstairs. 

Also need to install a Mastervolt inverter, Plan is to get only a small one, 300/500W, mainly used to power up the new computer screen and occasional charging of things. 

2.

Change the color of the decorative stripes and name/logo to "Gloss Charcoal Metallic". Also the previously painted bootstripe will be wrapped.

Old vinyls are removed and new ones are going on. The Charcoal Metallic Grey should play well in the daylight with little glitter without being too "goldy". Idea was to change the color to give more contemporary look and distinguish the boat from others. Old vinyls were not in a really bad shape but were peeling off here and there. This job was planned and 1/2 paid for to be done in Valencia. The English guy who was supposed to do the could not complete the job and walked away with my money..

3.

Fair the bottom & foils, re-coat and get the finish to look like the bulb on the picture below. Paints arrived from UK just before Christmas, I am hoping to get this job started by the end of January, but it really depends on the painter and his (and his shops) availability. It would be nice to do the bottom of the keel as well but I do not know if it is possible? 

4.

Upgrade the seacocks to a flush type for optimal light wind performance. Marelon Flowtech - closing flush valves would have been nice but there is not enough clearance for the valves. 

4.

Eberspacher or Webasto heating. GS 45 has limited option for ducting and it is pretty tigh fit but hopefully we can get a nozzle to every cabin. We might leave the Aft toilet without a warm air -nozzle, the Fwd. toilet/shower is more important as it is used for drying gear. Haven't yet decided on which model to go with but it all point towards Eberspacher D4 or D4+. Reason is the wide power range, especially in the lower end of the scale.

5.

Uprade the Solimar 170cm. S/S wheel to a composite wheel. Also at least the lower rudder bearing needs to be changed, top one we'll have to inspect when the rudder is dropped. Plan is to make an slight upgrade to the system as well. 

Christmas at Gulf of Mexico

The boat is in a warm warehouse, crew is out working to get the means for yet another adventure in the future :)

Crew T-shirt v1.0 in test.

Happy holidays!

Jobs contn'd

Prop Painted for Mediterranean in 04/2015. Unpainted prop on the Mediterranean would foul like there's no tomorrow. In the Baltic Sea it is not common to paint the prop as there is much less growth...

Paint removed and almost done with the polishing. It was a PITA to get all the paint off. Prop had some corrosion hiding under the paint, not too bad though, for a 10 year old prop.

Started the winch maintenance, used lamp oil+brush for the cleaning. 3/6 done. The smallest, 46.2 were easy to do, 48.2's were bit more complicated, but with help from the exploded view -drawing it was easy to put them back together. The 60.2's should be bit more complicated but as said, just need to follow the drawings...

Winches were in relatively good shape, I though they had almost no friction before the cleaning. I was wrong. The cleaned and newly greased/oiled winch was considerably more light to turn. They had a tad too much grease on them, now I only applied a very thin film of Harken Winch Grease with a small paint brush and Harken Pawl Oil to the Pawls.