Easter Aloft

The Easter bank holiday weekend proved very productive, and Matt and Giulia are in fact still hard at work as I am typing this. Among other things, we finally had a chance to install the attachment points for the running backstays - these are necesseray to balance the load on the inner forestay.

View from the mast, tools at hand

Despite moderately strong winds and a wintery chill in the air, it was dry - reasonable weather for working aloft.

New Holes in the Hull

Another Saturday, another day of maintenance

 

This Saturday was another productive session. Among other things we made a new fibreglass conduit to protect wiring in the bow, removed the old aluminium forestay groove, cut off the seized wind turbine and protected some more of the woodwork with epoxy.

The big job, however was the new hole in the hull.

Giulia's response on being sent this picture: "What the hell is that?!"

The bow and other efforts

Time is ticking. There are now only 3 month to go until we reach the end of our berthing contract at Fox's. (Let's not call it a departure date - that is just asking for trouble!) This week we decided to up our game and spend the whole weekend on Auriga, rather than just one day. I think the work paid off, and it felt like we got a lot done.

The toe-rail bolts

Work continues apace to put everything in the bow together before we seal it permanently with our new bulkhead. This weekend we worked hard removing, cleaning, covering in copious sikaflex, and replacing the toe rail bolts.

Giulia working into the night cleaning nuts and washers

We probably put in 10 hours between us, and got only halfway around the boat. Overall I think we removed and resealed 30 bolts.

Adding an inner forestay - Part 3

Preparing the bow for the bulkhead

As well as building the new bulkhead we had to shape a lip in the bow, positioned to fit the new board. This provides better sealing and, practically, something we can epoxy the finished bulkhead on to.

There was already a small lip to hold the original piece, which we used to position and cut a template from mdf. This was used to both shape the plywood bulkhead and also cut out to make a backing piece we could apply the new layer of fibreglass to.

Igor and Giulia - shaping the new template and plywood bulkhead

Adding an inner forestay - Part 2

Making the bulkhead

(see Part 1) The new bulkhead is made from 12mm marine ply laminated with a layer of biaxial fiberglass cloth on each side. All structural boltholes are reinforced with solid fiberglass laminate to withstand both radial loads and axial compression. We added two watertight access hatches - you never know when the chain behind a permanent bulkhead will get tangled! Overall, making the balkhead took many tens of hours of work. Here's the "making of".

Marking, cutting holes, sanding

Adding an inner forestay - Part 1

To prepare Auriga for ocean sailing, we want to make the boat as reliable and adaptable as possible. A common modification for offshore-going yachts is the addition of an inner forestay. A small staysail can be flown from it in heavy weather, being easier and safer to set than a storm jib and giving the crew additional options in most conditions.

Storm staysail in heavy weather © Carlo Borlenghi / Rolex

This requires a deck fitting of substantial strength, and we had to face a host of challenges in modifying Auriga accordingly.

Moving Home

This week we upgraded our home. We moved out of the "budget" marina into the slightly more upmarket Fox's. Mainly as we weren't happy with resting in the mud every low tide, but also in search of more reliable electricity and with thoughts of moving onto the boat one day soon. Fox's has a warm shower and a bar. Also, CUYC's boats, Kestrel and Puffin, are moored in Fox's so we can help with work on these boats while we are on Auriga.

Our old home - quaint, but lacking electricity...