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There are several lessons to be learned from this part of our Journey.
Sonar is your friend – we didn’t have it installed yet
Take into account the swell when watching depth – a foot up and down is 2 feet off the charted depth
Go with your gut – we should have just had a new rudder made – it would have been cheaper and quicker
Sea Love Boatworks decided to just rebuild the bottom of the rudder once we had the boat out of the water. I expected them to cut the rudder off square and carve a piece of foam core to shape and cover it with fiberglass. They chose to use heavily thickened epoxy filler and try to cover it with 7 or 8 applications, to fill in the bottom of the rudder. Then the plan was to sand it back some more and reskin the bottom of the rudder. Well as they sanded back further, we found stress cracks, that led to more sanding and more sanding and finally a complete new skin.
While I am fairly happy with the results (they could have faired it out cleaner) we are getting good performance out of it.
My issue is the time and cost associated with the repair because they tried to do it their way vs what I suggested. This delayed our departure to the Bahamas by most of a month unfortunately.
Rudder with repair visible at the bottom
We mounted a new electrical switch sub panel to accommodate:
New Fuel Polisher switch
Fuel Transfer pump switch (moved from under the berth)
Horn
New Stern salt water rinse (think cleaning up after cleaning fish)
Switch for Spotlights on the bow
there are some spares for future growth (good idea fairy never sleeps on this boat)
We also wanted to move the engine monitoring up to where we could see it. This became much more interesting as we dug into the existing wiring and the factory wiring diagram. When all was said and done, we installed a new 3 position switch panel and then used the existing Hobbs Meter. The 2 switches are for the Glow Plugs, Start/Run and Stop.
There is also a new alarm controller from Yacht devices that has an acknowledgement push button that needed a home.
To all of this we added a couple of radio handset clips, 2 speakers (alarms and radio), the chart plotter mounts, a tablet mount on top and behind and finally 4 cup holders.
Right now this is still considered version 2.5 with a nicer version 3 when I have more time and access to materials or a craftsman that can make something nicer. But for now this is much better than anything we’ve had to date.
This shows the new Helm Station panel - the Engine gages are not yet mounted and neither are the 2 Ram Mounts for the 2 Garmin Chart Plotters
Masthead Mount
Objective – needed to mount a 2nd VHF antenna as well as accommodate 2 cameras. Needed to also account for the existing wind indicator and wind instrument.
Brian took the antenna mount that Erny had originally created and built it into a brand new mast head cap. We ran into some clearance issues with the original wind indicator (it needed to be retired anyway) so had to add an extension to provide the clearance for it and the masthead light. The Garmin camera is mounted and faces down and forward. There is room and already wiring in place to support the FLIR camera in the future.
Helm Station Instrument Panel
Objective – provide a home for a new switch panel and move the engine instrumentation up where it was easily seen.
We have been thinking about this project for over a year. Originally we just mounted an aluminum bar on the Helm support to hold the 2 chart plotters and Radio Hand Set. This worked fine for the first year, but we had bigger plans.
Ideally this would have been made out of fiberglass or Starboard, but we ran out of time and cobbled something together using Marine Plywood coated in Flex Seal rubberized waterproof sealer.
New Starlink and RADAR Mount above the Solar panels
RADAR/ Starlink Mount
Objective – Move the RADAR Mount from the mast where the Jib was hitting it to behind and above the Solar Arch and provide a place to mount a Starlink Antenna
Brian at Fairhaven Shipyard worked with Lee to design a great solution as you can see. The Starlink pole is fixed inside of a tube that is just the right inside diameter to hold the stock Starlink mount. The power and data wires are run down the mount and into the wire races in the Solar panel arch and down into the Lazzarettes.
The sugar scoop has returned almost a knot of speed back to the boat
Sugar Scoop
Fairhaven Shipyard – Fairhaven, MA
When the swim platform was added to the stern, we didn’t realize how much drag it added. Once we were sailing and looked back at it, we realized it acted as a drag brake on the back when we were heeled over. The idea of the Sugar Scoop, extending the lines of the hull around the swim platform, was born.
Lee called around to various shipyards prior to us heading north until he decided we would get the work done in Fairhaven, MA, at the Fairhaven Shipyard. They were one of the few shipyards that could handle a boat our size and all the work we wanted to get done over the summer. And their prices were reasonable.
Lee discussed the work to be done with the guys doing the work, and they went to work. As part of this work, they moved the hinge point on the swim platform to coincide with where the sugar scoop would intersect the platform. This shortens the height of the part that swings up.
The sugar scoop has returned almost a knot of speed back to the boat