As many of you know, I'm heading off to sail to Europe this year. I'll try to post updates with photos as time permits. Today was the splash, boat is now in the water after a fair amount of work was done. All new thru hulls: several removed - I went from 8 thru hulls to 5. The kitchen sink thru hull I moved from an inaccessible location to right under the sink, logical and easy to access. I removed an ancient forward looking sonar from the hull that looked like a cancer growth and was not a functional device. That makes for easier travel lift work besides likely adding to my hull speed. The SSB ground plate was sandblasted clean and reinstalled. Engine zinc was redesigned as it was a zinc that you can't buy anymore. Same thing on my aft rudder shoe. There were two zincs that must have been custom made. Impossible to find anything even remotely close. So I redesigned those zincs/attachments also. Let me tell you, drilling and taping the stainless on this boat is a major chore! Had my bottom soda blasted and 5 layers of epoxy barrier coat put on and a couple coats of Trinidad bottom paint. Should be good for awhile.
Lots of work on the inside as well, had the 12V system revamped with a LiFePo battery system. I've got an AGM start battery and two AGM batteries running my bow thruster and windlass. Everything feeds off the LiFePo batteries. I'm running twin alternators controlled by a wakespeed 500 controller. I'll be able to dump almost 200 amps into the LiFePo batteries when running the engine. I've several redundancies on the charging.
I'm setting up to have redundancy in steering also, I've an old Raymarine autopilot that runs well enough. It's a direct drive on the rudder and plenty of power to run this boat. I've installed a Hydrovane windvane - that will be my workhorse. And as the Hydrovane is an auxiliary rudder, I've an Autohelm autopilot I used to have on a rudder boat from my past and I can hook it up to the Hydrovane.
All new stainless lifelines - thanks to someone here that gave a link to a company in New England that does a great job and very reasonable priced! 1/4" top and 3/16" middle (or lower?). New Viking Solas A life raft - it almost fits my original life raft mount from 1984! I'll just have to modify that a bit and that life raft will drop right onto it! I'm pretty excited about that! I'd been looking at the measurements of the raft and where I wanted it to go and I was worried it wasn't quite right. I put it in place today and it's like perfect!
Lots more, but here's the photos of the splash!
dj
Lots of work on the inside as well, had the 12V system revamped with a LiFePo battery system. I've got an AGM start battery and two AGM batteries running my bow thruster and windlass. Everything feeds off the LiFePo batteries. I'm running twin alternators controlled by a wakespeed 500 controller. I'll be able to dump almost 200 amps into the LiFePo batteries when running the engine. I've several redundancies on the charging.
I'm setting up to have redundancy in steering also, I've an old Raymarine autopilot that runs well enough. It's a direct drive on the rudder and plenty of power to run this boat. I've installed a Hydrovane windvane - that will be my workhorse. And as the Hydrovane is an auxiliary rudder, I've an Autohelm autopilot I used to have on a rudder boat from my past and I can hook it up to the Hydrovane.
All new stainless lifelines - thanks to someone here that gave a link to a company in New England that does a great job and very reasonable priced! 1/4" top and 3/16" middle (or lower?). New Viking Solas A life raft - it almost fits my original life raft mount from 1984! I'll just have to modify that a bit and that life raft will drop right onto it! I'm pretty excited about that! I'd been looking at the measurements of the raft and where I wanted it to go and I was worried it wasn't quite right. I put it in place today and it's like perfect!
Lots more, but here's the photos of the splash!
dj
