Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete7
Inspect the rig and rudder before going, hardly expensive, unless there is something serious found.
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Why are you misrepresenting UNCIVILIZED's comments? He did not recommend inspecting the rig and rudder which anyone would agree would be prudent. He arbitrarily recommended, amongst to other upgrades, that the theoretical seven to fifteen year old boat in the OP needed to
"Rebuild the rig, replacing all tangs & major structural bolts, & fittings. Stays included.
Add 2nd headstay - Solent or Staysail...
....Rebuild Rudder"
Several years ago I looked into adding a Solent
jib as a posible upgrade to my boat. To do the job I would have had to go to a yard to pull the rig, pay yard labor, and hire an outside contractor to weld in the sheave box. What UNCIVILIZED can do in a long weekend the yard wanted three to four weeks to turn around not including lead time on
sails.
The ball park I got for this
work including
hardware but not including the cost of the sail itself or running
rigging was $12k-$14k. A rudder
rebuild on my boat costs something like +$3k not including
shipping the old one to the fabricator and the new one back. Those few items from a twenty point list combined equal a big chunk of cruising kitty for some people and you haven't even left the
dock.
Contrast this with the experience of MarkJ who sailed around the world on his ex-Sunsail charter boat just fine without rebuilding his rudder or adding a Solent
jib and didn't replace his standing rigging until after 40,000 miles.
Would I love to have a Solent jib? Of course! Would I be willing to cross an ocean again without one? Absolutely! My first crossing taught me you just don't need one to safely cross an ocean. It taught me to make the right
passage in the right season.
That crossing was a late season
delivery of a thirty-six year old
racing boat during which we experienced several gales including one that lasted six days with 35-65 knots
wind speed. Mostly we used a twenty-five year old Kevlar blade but at times a thirty-six year old
storm jib.
Oh, and by the way, for the trip boat owner purchased what I believed to be a too small
wind vane and despite spending hours making new vanes and hours of fidgeting we could never get it to work. He had been
cheap about
purchasing it because he was broke at that point after having just bought a boat and paying for all of the other must haves.
With only three on onboard and my wife mostly confined to her berth because of
sea sickness, the owner and I effectively double-handed hand-steering across the Atlantic.
Not my first choice and an experience I would seek to avoid in the future, but don't let anyone tell you it can't be done. Conditions were so poor at times during that gale that I think it would have been dangerous to use self-steering so keep that in mind as well. Better to do what most cruisers do and simply choose pasages and times make it likely you will not see these types of conditions.