Putting some Smartdeck on the bunks

This winter season we did not so much on the boat than doing some tough-ups of cracks and paint.
We did buy a bigger LiFePO4 battery and did go from 90Ah to 250Ah, this was needed after Experian's we had at the Vegvisirrace last year and what we are going to do this year again.

Our biggest change was to put some Smartdeck on the beams and bunks, this brand gives a five year warranty on there product and that did decided to go for this product. In the past I did look to some other brands with EVA foam but did hear that it did not last long. This product is made from PE what can be recycled after use.
Now the trousers will last a bit longer and the seat is a bit softer on the butt 😏

New side stay lassing and Titanium bold.

Tough-up of a crack

 

Sailing again

 Yesterday we did our first sail this year and that was not bad, the hum we did have above 14kn were gone. The tuning of the daggerboard has helped to solve this. I only have to calibrate the windsensor but that I do coming Thursday. The sensor was dismantled and the wind angle over both sides is not the same.
This is not difficult, sailing on the wind on both tracks and make the angle the same with two buttons on the windsensor interface.

On the end we looked on the max speed we did and that was not bad 17,7 kn in max 20 kn wind with only jib and main.

Coming weekend we have our first race of the season https://50mijl.nl/

We have a lift off

 Today we put the boat on stands so we could clean the bottom and repair some blisters what were under the copper coat. We sanded the bottom and pealed the blisters open and filled them with a copper based filler. I hope I can sand the filler tomorrow. Plan is to put some copper coat on the middel section were the blisters were next weekend.

Painting the cockpit floor and the new waterline

 Yesterday we did paint the cockpit floor and put some extra layers Interprotect on the raised waterline.

Today we did put four layers Coppercoat on the floats and the daggerboard.

Raise waterline

 I decided to raise the waterline an extra 10 cm and that was above the 9 cm I did three years ago.

I also did give the rudder and daggerboard a fresh paint job and the tip of the daggerboard need some new Copper coat because last summer I touch the ground in France.

Finished the instrument panel

 This weekend I finish the instrument panel, put the VHF in its place and closed the cable ducts.

I started with the outboard motor mount after I removed the outboard Friday to get it a service.
The outboard motor mount get one car with ball bearings so that it slides easier, one gas cable has to replaced to. For the new car the strip round the rail had to be cut a bit away because the car is wider.

We mounted the gennaker pole what had a rebuild and some little changes.

Installed a Echomax radarreflector

 Today I installed my recently bought Echomax radarreflector, it is one with the lassing option so you can tighten it to dimond wires. I also connected all the coax cables with some new connectors to the ais antenna splitter and closed the cable ducts.
The people from Echomax were so kind to sent it to me directly because the importeur in the Netherlands was not going to deliver the lassing option in the short time

An other thing I did was put some filler on on the instrument console and hope this was the last time so I can put some paint on it after some sanding tomorrow.