More refits…

• Removed and replaced all the gelcoat below the water line.
• Dropped the keel off, sandblasted and re-expoxied and faired it (corrosion revealed after blasting was way more than we could see previously). This might be important for other owners as their keels may be far worse than they know under years of anti-foul. (Pic included below note also the box around top of keel can be really bad once gelcoat is removed). Interestingly the keel bolts were in really good nick, with only one showing a lot of corrosion, the rest all turned without loss of the thread. A great testament of quality build after 30 years!
• We had to rebuild and reseal the old outboard well.
• Finally since we had removed all the old gelcoat and anti-foul we were able to copper coat the hull which should help as we will be racing off a marina for 5 months of the year. It should be easier to clean and save costs as it has a life of 7-8 years before it needs to be redone.
• Re resprayed the topsides back to the original powder blue colour and added a white bootstripe.
• With our engine we needed to replace the water cooler, battery, cutlass bearing and add an isolator switch.
• On the rig we are fixing the spreaders.
• We’ve order a new UK MacWilliam #1 and new oversized kite as we’ll be racing quarter tonners, really well sailed j24’s and of course 2 other Impala’s in Dublin Bay.

All this before we’ve even looked at work inside the boat! – I’ve 3 young kids so we want to make the interior, comfortable, warm and dry. Over the season we’ll run a to do list and probably replace the cushions and recover and then in the winter remove all the wood work recondition and restore. ‘