Averisera: 7 Year Refit

Refit after seven years not a refit of seven years' duration. Two years was long enough!

To start, the back story. We sailed to the Cape in May of 2014, moored in Stage Harbor and hardly used the boat for a dozen hours that season. Family visitors (many), a new house to settle into, grandma to care for and so on. Averisera was hauled and placed in dry storage. During dry storage, we undertook to refit the boat. As with every project of that nature, the mission crept upwards in complexity, time, and money. Then, one day, it was over. We launched.

Above: The rewards of the refit: a sail. Everything works. The sky is blue. The sea is blue. Nantucket Sound was magical. October, 2016. Just over two years after we hauled out for a long dry storage term and refit.



7 December 2016, Averisera at her Winter berth in Harwichport, MA


9 May, 2014, Averisera, having just arrived from Boston. We tied up at the boatyard in Harwichport for the night with no idea we'd be back two years later.


September 2014: Hauled and washed before being trailered to the inland storage facility of Harwichport Boat Yard. The longest sail of the season was from Stage Harbor to Wychmere Harbor.


September 2016: Back in the water, Very shiney and new looking. She floats higher without all the old bottom paint and five years of accumulated cruising/racing gear.

One of the big jobs that came with much uncertainty was painting the deck. The decking is charcoal grey TreadMaster. We could find nothing about painting TreadMaster and a couple of painters were not encouraging. We spoke with one paint company representative at a boat show about it. He couldn't say one way or the other. We tried it and are satisfied so far. A sample place was tested and lasted four years. We painted the decking with Pettitt Platinum. Time will tell.


Two views of the deck before and after. The motivation was that the dark deck was simply too hot in summer. The first coat was splotchy so two coats of enamel were applied. The TreadMaster is a superb surface for not slipping when wet. Painted, it loses a bit of traction and is still better than most non-skid decks I have used. Next time... ha... I will prime the surface with white primer and finish with an enamel+non-skid mix.  (https://www.treadmaster.co.uk/)

Inside is where most of the hard work took place.

Some images of the interior refit. The headliner "mousefur" was removed and new carpet-like surface applied. The inside of the hull was painted and the wood painted or varnished. The "mouse fur" was odious stuff to remove. Many successive layers of paint remover were applied and scraped off. Eventually, we romved all the deck hardware and got the job done right. Plan A was to paint the overhead. Plan B was a much better solution. The fabric is from Sail Rite.

Thumper and the Boom-Boom Room:




Off-plan: the Thumper the Engine needed to be removed and rebuilt. While out, the Boom Boom Room (engine space) was cleaned, re-soundproofed and painted.



On plan, the instrument holes in the bulkhead were filled, faired and painted.

 On plan and forgotten. The standing rigging fits into reinforced inserts. Those pieces are all cracked. We knew about it before we rigged and simply forgot to do the replacement of the reinforcements. When the rigging crew was all lined up and ready to step the rig, it was too late. We will unstep the mast, make the repair and re-step the rig as soon as possible.  What was it Astro said? "Rhut rho Rhorge." A simple fix to make and stupid thing to forget.

We love our boat so trading her in on a newer model was out of the question. We looked at few boats and figured that the cost in time and money favored Averisera.

Restore!

The Yankee 30 found a new owner and is well under way for a restoration which may be less dramatic that it appeared at first.

The missing gear was found and it is in great shape.

Restore or Destroy?

A Yankee 30, abandoned in a boatyard, still restorable and a fine example of a good small voyager.  Is it worth the effort to restore or should it go into a dumpster?

Note:  AppliedSailing is not representing the boat for sale.  I work for the boatyard that has title to this yacht. I'm the only sailor at a boatyard full of fishermen and families. The vessel is appropriate because it has several key features starting with a skeg protected rudder and ending with a good designer and builder pedigree.

The boat is a 1971 Yankee 30.  More detailed information is available on line at www.sailboatdata.com

To compare a Yankee 30 to many other types of sailing yachts go to:  http://www.tomdove.com/sailcalc/sailcalc.html

The designer's blog is here:  http://sparkmanstephens.blogspot.com/2011/05/yankee-30-design-1999.html

Those are up-to-date clutches and winches. The traveler looks new.

The galley is perfect for a cruising couple. It runs across the back of the salon, sink and icebox on one side, stove and pantry on the other. There is no quarterberth.

Messy but not dysfunctional. This is the sink and icebox side.

Starboard side on deck. There is a cockpit dodger frame. Don't know about canvas.

Cockpit view, full of leaves. Can be removed easily. I love tiller steering and two deep cockpit lockers for sails, fenders, lines, etc. Radar has been vandalized for innards.

View of the stove side from the hatch. Inside is pretty nice. Needs to be cleaned up.

Hull #29 of S&S Design 1999

Awlgrip is in pretty good shape. There are a few scratches, but mostly it looks good.

Still shiny.

The bottom looks like it was stripped and repainted. Looks pretty smooth.

Nice lines. In 1970, this is what a good ocean boat looked like.

Disregard the torn shrink wrap. 

Get a leaf blower or a shop vac. Teak needs some love. Luckily it has been oiled, not varnished. Can be restored to its former glory pretty handily.

Keel stepped mast, enclosed by head bulkheads below. If mast partners leak, they would leak into the head, not the salon! Nice. Teak collar needs work or replacement.

Forward hatch, plexiglass cracked. Not expensive to replace. Might be nice to get something pretty.

Engine box is on the salon table. Disregard. Salon has dinette to port, settee to starboard. Engine is on centerline behind the mast, which is a really nice feature. Weight is where it belongs.

Messy starboard side of salon. Nice woodwork!

Salon floor is the part that looks icky. Throw out that carpet! Clean it up.

Nanni diesel. Nice! New! Worth a lot!

V-berth forward.

Head. Spacious for a 30 footer.

Hanging locker across from head.

First order of business is to clean the boat. You can see that it has good bones. This was built before the oil embargo, which imputes that the fiberglass will be heavy duty. A solid cruiser.

Retire and Go Sailing- Boat Choices, con't

Voyage by truck?

Little boat, no headroom, sails like a dream, trailerable (after a fashion) hotels, small house, travel around the country and sail more places than if one was voyaging by boat.  Voyage by truck and trailer.  Boat as the RV.  

Retire and Go Sailing-- Cultures

Courtesy Flags and Local Culture

The grandkids were over for a few days.  They always love to get out some of my old courtesy flags from my Caribbean days and rig them in the trees.  They also love to hear about the islands and the way people live in those places.  It reminds me of how the yachties represent their culture interacting with another.  It can go really well.  The courtesy flag indicates, "We respect your culture."

One of the things I have done to get a quick look at local culture is buy my courtesy flags at a local mart.  Aside from the fact they are less expensive than at the chandlery, I get to meet some locals while showing respect for their country.  They share back useful "secrets" in return.  I get away from the cruising world and step into the local's world... a bit.  The Customs and immigration folks have always been more than delighted to direct me to a local store selling national flags.

Voyaging the House-Guests and Neighbors

Voyaging, it is easy to take a break from the neighbors, neighborhood, town, etc.  Pick up the hook and slip off to a new place... maybe busier, maybe quieter.

In the House, the "land yacht" guests are way, way easier.  Pretty much everyone knows how to live in a house.  Guests aboard the yacht have to learn a whole new set of behaviors.

Voyaging the House-Charts and Maps

Paper charts.  Analoge.  In the land-house, we have maps showing topography for hiking or rivers for rowing, etc.  Of course, we still use big road maps when planning trips.  Digital information, GPS and map software/apps are very handy for automobile travel.  On the water, paper charts still rule for planning and even detail.  We can draw on them, annotate with notes.  We use digital charting in many ways.

Voyaging?  Maybe the best way to spend part of an evening with other sailors is with a large area chart spread out and the dream machine running full speed.  Which charts?

Start with the Pilot Charts.  Then move over to the various large area charts.  I have pictures below.  These aren't fancy images of never-been-folded charts.  My charts are marked up and well loved.

The pilot charts show statistical information about expected winds, current, sea temperatures, barometric pressure, ice, and wave heights for a give month on a given ocean.  Planning to sail from Newport, RI to Antigua?  You can get an overview of the conditions at sea for the month you plan to sail.  Invaluable.

These charts came from Chase Levitt in Portland, Maine.  Other sources known to me are Landfall Navigation in Greenwich, CT and Bluewater Books and Charts in Ft Lauderdale, FL.

True story:  Planning a trip to St Maarten in 2004.  Local guy asks if I am going down the coast from Massachusetts to Florida before crossing over to the Caribbean.  I said, "No."  He asked why and I took out the pilot chart, showed him the distances and wind directions.  He asked, "So why do so many people do it that way?"  "Dunno?"  Maybe a long offshore trip is unpleasant.  Maybe they just never looked at a pilot chart.