Author: Matthew

It is a Small World – Jolly Harbour, Antigua Edition

by Matthew

Last week we went to Antigua for a skills and mile building course with Miramar Sailing. We booked at the last minute, with a choice of Antigua or Grenada, Miramar were faster to respond and got the business.  As we were in the process of packing I noticed a FB post from sailing friends Catherine and Henry on S/V Mowzer that they had just arrived in Jolly Harbour, home of Miramar Sailing.  We don’t know many people who are “out there” and it was a bit weird to think of the few people we do know in the Caribbean, some of them would be in the same port.  I contacted Catherine and we arranged to meet on the Sunday before our course.

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Catherine and Henry are about 2 years ahead of us.  They sold up and sailed in the fall of 2014 and spent the summer of 2015 in Grenada so they have a lot of cruising experience but still recall the transition.  After a tour of their lovely cat, a Fountaine-Pajot Mahe 36, we hung out for the afternoon in St John’s and we asked question after question about their experiences and recommendations.  Thanks to Catherine and Henry for the data dump!

It was great to catch up in person, blogs and Facebook are great but glimpsing the cruising life just for a few hours was wonderful.  I think we are going to love our time away.

Later in the week we were sailing close to Jolly Harbour and we heard Isbjorn hailing the marina.  Isbjorn is Andy Schell and Mia Karlsson’s Swan 48.  Andy, Mia and Andy’s dad, Dennis gave us the recommendation that directly lead to us buying Kinship.  We never did sight Isbjorn or track Andy down, it looks like they are in English Harbour preparing for the RORC Caribbean 600 race that starts in about a week from this post.

If we bump into people we know at this pace despite only knowing a handful of boats, I suspect our social life might be quite busy.

Refit Part 3 – Fibreglass and Keel Work

by Matthew

Kinship has been “in the shed” for a few weeks and work has been progressing. The focus was to get all the fibreglass repairs done while the boat was indoors and not dependent on weather.  This is also the stage that Dixon was doing most of the work. Dixon has done a fine job of filling and repairing the wounds left by the removal of the radar and wind generator towers along with assorted other small parts that were no longer needed.

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The keel repairs have been completed.  As I mentioned, we had some cracking of the fairing over the keel joint, seen above.  The fibreglass was detached from much of the area of the joint and was not doing much.  The crack in the keel fairing is a few inches below the actual joint.  I am not sure why this happened, a mix of water getting in and a freezing and some movement in the joint.

We pulled out the holding tank and this revealed the lack of plates under the aft keel bolts and some minor stress cracks in the paint. The rest of the keel bolts have plates.    I ground away the paint in the keel sump, the cracks did not penetrate the structure at all.  The sump was reinforced with 6-8 layers of 18oz glass and epoxy.  Over-sized 3/8 stainless  plates have been installed to spread the loads.  The sump and the connection to the keel is now stronger and stiffer.

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Refit Part 2 – In to the Shed

by Matthew

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In early December, Kinship was moved indoors.  Loyalist Cove Marina built a new building for repairs and storage in 2013 and we are lucky to have access to this great facility.  The building is a short drive from the marina, so there are height restrictions on the road, but these are about the same as the door height.

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The building has 4 doors on the far side that are just tall enough to allow Kinship to fit in.  There are currently about 12 boats in various states, some like Kinship in for relatively minor work, others in for a complete refit. Working on the boat in shirtsleeves in the winter is quite the treat.

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