Deck -Marty got the shrinkwrap installed to enclose the boat for the Winter. Skyward looks proper as a full-size floating mobile home fitted with a corrugated doorway.
Marty placed a massive diesel heater in the cockpit. Since it is now a dry environment, we no longer have to lift up the tarp to see the progress. In fact, the tarp is entirely off the boat. All of the original caulk and glue has been sanded down and the surface is now ready for the next phase which includes expoxy coating.
We are very careful to not take on more work than necessary. In this case, Marty is not removing the mast step nor the chain plates. He meticulously cut around each of these items as they are affixed already to deck underneath them. New teak will be butted right up to this point with caulk.
Thanks to this project, we are also able to see what might be the cause of our companionway hatch being hard to open/close. It turns out that the stainless slide rails are coated with dirt and grime, the rails are not held down properly with screws in every hole, and there is wiring hanging down for the instrument panel. This will definitely be on our fix-it list.
Genoa, jib and mainsail cars and tracks – The first shipment of parts from Mauripro has arrived. Now we have all genoa and jib cars and all ends in-hand. We have a few items remaining to be shipped to us.
The original Genoa and Jib cars installed by Hallberg-Rassy are all the same design: Friction-based slide. This made it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to move these cars when in use and under load. The new cars are all Size 2 Lewmar with torlon ball bearings. Here is a side-by-side comparison of the 25-year-old Lewmar Genoa cars to the brand new Size 2 Lewmar Genoa cars.
| Feature | Original | New |
| Weight | 1.4 kg | 1.4 kg |
| Design | Friction Slide | Torlon Ball Bearings |
| Support Posts | 3 | 2 |
Here is a comparison from the current Lewmar manual between a new Size 2 and a new Size 3 Genoa car. You can see that the working load limit is 3960 lb and 7700 lbs, respectively for the Size 2 and Size 3 Genoa cars.
The new hardware looks very nice — new, basically. But I need to go back to Ludvig at HR-Parts and determine if indeed I have purchased the correct hardware from Mauripro since the load rating is quite a bit lower than original design.
Then there is the dilemma about the length of the genoa/jib car track. The original track is 12’10” overall length (OAL). As shown in the diagram, it is designed to contain both a genoa car and a jib car for our Solent rig. We rarely run both sails at the same time and never using the same track. However, the jib car can also serve the hank-on jib on the inner forestay – in that case, we could use the same track for both sails.
Most important in this discussion is that Lewmar only sells Size 2 30 mm tracks that are 6’3″ or 9’10” long. So I have to come up with a design that can provide the same feature as the original installation. I have all of the necessary new hardware to replace the original hardware as mentioned above except the right length of track. Time to get creative!
Liferaft – after conducting some informal research among the HR owners groups and online reviews, we decided to purchase a new Vidking RescYou Pro 6. It arrived very quickly – it was drop shipped from the manufacturer. I can’t wait to get this installed on the coachroof in front of the sprayhood.
The Loxodograph 