Life trucks on sorting out design details in respect of cabin finishes. “The devil is indeed in the detail�.
But two things crop up, one I knew about and the other relates to a topic I see periodically on the FOC website.
From day one Pete Foulkes was sceptical about the coach roof-it did creak a bit and he warned me never to give the grab rails a sharp, well, grab! But as I never go forward I cast it from my mind! So when Custom Yachts strip the cabin out, all becomes clear. One new coach roof coming up! Solid as a rock and hopefully more watertight than its predecessor.
Then there were the keel bolts. We knew from the forward lifting point that any through fixings were suspect. So I asked Custom Yachts to draw a couple of keel bolts for a sample testing-I need say no more, see the photos…14 keel bolts coming up. Bill Dunlop suggested galvanised steel which would last another 43 years but I was very surprised that bronze bolts were only a couple of pounds each more…and I like bronze. More about keel bolts in 2011.
We tackle two other areas.
The first is the raw water filters-there are some wonderful old fittings on the boat I wanted to keep, and these were pretty original but the filters were corroded and I could not find replacements. I could replace the whole fitting but in the end Reliant Engineering cleaned up the brass housings and made new filters and replaced the neoprene rings. Perfect.
The second was the engine brackets-Southern Marine Services felt the engine lugs sat too high on the engine mount bolts, so we made up some stainless steel shims to sit between the support brackets and the engine mounts so the lugs sat more comfortably on the bolts.
