4/29/09 Update

Hi all,

It’s been a little bit since I put the site up again, and I decided it was time to do a quick update. I figured I better get with it now since we are only about another month away from the Bermuda 1-2! We have a lot of work to accomplish in the next few weeks, but progress is being made each day. Here are a few photos of our progress..

New rudder hardware from Dad – a little bigger, and better reinforced. We also hit something on the last day of the 07 Bermuda 1-2 that dented the stbd rudder and actually enlarged the bolt holes a bit in the transom, causing a little leak.. these new ones ought to solve that!

Next we are on to another miserable project .. we are repainting the topsides and bottom, replacing of course the numbers and putting the boats name on the side as well. At the moment we are at the ‘almost ready to paint’ stage. Check back in a week!

You might notice that the stanchions and stern pulpits are missing too. Ugh. Our spacing was no longer legal, so we needed to move the stanchions and completely replace the stern pulpits with new ones. 

We also have to do something more permanent with our floatation foam inside. We put our new superlight foam up in the bow that we hotwire cut to fit the shape of the boat, and have now built a carbon shell around it, which we still have to tape in there the next couple days..

We have a few more details to take care of  after this. We still have to update the doors, install a new carbon water ballast intake, rewire the boat, and we are making some changes to the mast as well.. whew! It’s a lot to tackle this late in the game, but we will get it done.

The other exciting things that happened today are that I received my new sails from Schurr Sails. Here are a couple photos. We laid them out and cut and fit the battens, and then brought the mast and boom to the sails to take a look and make sure that our measurements were all right. Thankfully, they look perfect! we will know a little more when we get the mast work finished and get the mast stepped in another week or so!

So this year we got a new Mainsail, Jib, and a Code 5. We have an existing AP runner, Code 0, and storm sails that are passable. Our previous sails were just not up to the task. They didn’t fit, were recut several times, and still were not right. Our previous sailmaker didn’t understand the boat at all, and delivered the sails so late that we barely had time to make them fit well enough to even race. It was pretty disappointing. This time we went with a great loft, and had lots of advice from friends that know what the sails are supposed to look like and how they should perform. (Thanks Jan and Hunter) There are not many lofts here in the US that get mini’s. 

And here last but not least is a sneak preview of the eKo keel that Katie has been sanding on for the last couple days!!

And the eKo got it’s sails this week too!

Okay that’s more than enough for today! I will post some more in a day or two..

Drew