Our 3 month refit rush to the water begins with the original design details that make a full refit of 1977 Rival 38 Centre Cockpit Ketch much easier.
We throw in our 3 top tips to make a full refit much faster.
Some of the Sailing channels that we have learned from and seen these features work against them are:
- Sailing Magic Carpet. https://www.youtube.com/c/SailingMagicCarpet Their Cape George needing half the deck beams replacing, plus a lot of the plywood deck.
- Sail Life: https://www.youtube.com/c/SailLife Mads has replaced the deck core and fixed floor timbers, as well as keel repairs and gutting the interior.
- Spoondrifters: https://www.youtube.com/c/Spoondrifters see the issues with their toerail because there wasn’t a watertight GRP joint.
- Sailing Soulianis: https://www.youtube.com/c/SailingSoulianis various Deck core issues
- Expedition Evans: https://www.youtube.com/c/ExpeditionEvans full structural rebuild with GRP Linings, Keel joint and iron keel
- Beau and Brandy Sailing: https://www.youtube.com/c/SailingSaoirse they nearly sank because an internal grp moulded water tank cut through the hull and then prevented access. Significant Keel Issues.
- Sailing Uma: https://www.youtube.com/c/SailingUma in the early days they discovered all the internal structure needed to hold their keel on was broken. Huge job to fix it.
- Wildlings Sailing. https://www.youtube.com/c/WildlingsSailing Nadiyana did an amazing job restoring their windows. But very, very hard to avoid leaks as nearly every channel with an old boat can’t stop the leaks with the original windows.
Look at the refits on “Sailing Uma”, “Beau and Brandy Saiiing”, “Bums on a Boat”, “Sailing the good, bad and ugly”, “Free Range Sailing” to see why a separate aft cabin would have helped.
Composting toilet: Look at every boat doing a refit without one, also every boat doing horrible toilet fixes who doesn’t have one.
Headlining. An issue for everyone. Even with good headlinings, we suggest taking them down if you have any issues with leaks and not putting them up until the end or you will spend hours taking them down and putting them up multiple times.
Two and a half years ago, when we bought Vida, she was in a very tired and damp condition with all original equipment and fittings (much of it not working). We have removed all the gas, diesel, and paraffin equipment as well as all the plumbing and electrics. We have composting toilets, are installing an electric motor and all electric cooking. We are fitting a huge solar array and probably a wind generator. We have replaced all the windows, removed all the headlining and more. We are replacing all the standing rigging with Dyneema synthetic rigging. This is the biggest sustainability project of our lives as we prepare for a retirement when we want to cruise the world using zero fossil fuels on a very low budget.
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Sustainable Sailing 