@david-and-felicity
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We fitted a pair of Harken 40.2 STA winches a couple of years ago. They were relatively easy to fit and work beautifully. So much easier to use than the old ones. The 40.2 seems to give plenty of mechanical advantage, so I don’t think you need anything larger
David
We removed the overhead handles from inside the cockpit. In fact one of them came off when I put my weight on it in a force 7! They were held on by brass screws that had almost completely de-zincified and were a pain to remove. We replaced them with heavier duty marine grade stainless screws, sealed with Sikaflex. We have had no problems since.
In answer to Marilyn’s question, I have screwed into the main cabin deckhead and it certainly looks like wood core. I can confirm that the after cabin has a wood core to the deckhead, I have drilled right through that. We also have wood cores to the side and fore decks, it is open on the under side over much of its area. We do have a patch of rot here from a leak under one of the guard rail stanchions that we are going to have to try to deal with.
David
Guy,
Van is right you should have a block and tackle under the boom to tension the luff once you have hoisted the sail. I believe it is called a cunningham. You can use it to change the sail shape: have it tight in strong winds and looser it in light airs.
A decent sailmaker should be able to adapt your sail for slab reefing. They will fit extra cringles in for the tack. We have three reefs on ours but I don’t think we have ever used the third one. We tend to drop the sail completely and run on mizzen and suitably furled genoa.
We replaced our lazy jacks with a home sewn sail pack. It is well worth the effort. It makes dropping the sails really easy.
David
Hi Marilyn,
We have a fuel sensor fitted, it came with the Volvo engine fitted by the PO. It gives a reasonable guide to fuel remaining but we don’t rely on it and still do regular dips.
David
Hi All,
I have the original owners handbook for Borlowen (hull no 125). This gives the tons displacement (mean) as 7.1 tons (7214 Kg) and the tons per inch immersion as 0.39 tons. These are the figures you should use, increasing the displacement to allow for the extra fuel, water and stores you have embarked.
The registered tonnage is a calculated figure based on the total internal volume of the hull. It is not directly related to the displacement and was really introduced for commercial shipping.
David
We have never had a problem. I do always try to lift the anchor from the fo’c’sle and, if the chain is too muddy, I dunk it back in the water to rinse it off. I can also pick off any big bits of weed that come up but we never wash it. We do sail the south coast of the UK and so the weather is not too hot, but we have never had any smells from the locker. David.
IHi Trevor,
We painted the vynil with Sadolin Superdec, a water based exterior paint. It takes a couple of coats to give a good coverage but there is no cracking and the paint has fully cured. We have also replaced the deckheads with 4mm ply, again painted with Superdec. It makes the whole cabin look much brighter.
David
We have fitted the two sheet tripple purchase system (using 8mm) line as described by Ronar M. It is much better than the original one. We have also bought cam cleats to take the sheets and will be fitting them this weekend. I will let you know how they work in a couple of weeks when we have tried them out.
David
Hi All,
Sorry for the late post. We have a Hydrovane on Borlowen, inherited with the boat. The PO says that he sailed the boat back across the Atlantic using it and it worked fine. Unfortunately, the sailing we were doing last year did not give much of an opportunity to try it but my son did use it coming back to Plymouth and managed to spend a happy hour on deck watching dolphins and not worrying about the steering. We intend to spend a bit more time setting the system up on longer trips this year.
David
