Post-Return Survey

Now that Resolute is back in Camden, ME, I’ve had a chance to offload her “offshore” gear (and provisions, like food) and to do a detailed survey of her condition.

Overall, it’s good news. The only appreciable damage is to the mainsail and to the deck studs to which the shrouds attach.

Mainsail

I knew offshore that the webbing attaching the sail to several of the Antal mast slides had broken—so the slides, while still perfectly comfortable in the mast track—were no longer keeping their portion of the luff of the sail attached. There are a few other bits of the sail that need repair (telltales are gone, for example), but I’m optimistic that the sail can be repaired to “as new” condition. The body of the sail (all of the area between the leech, luff and foot is, I think, in great shape.

Shroud Base

The only other significant damage was to two “studs” that provide the attachment points for the shrouds—they’re a bit bent. The good news on that front is that I already have two (actually four—port and starboard) brand new replacement studs. When I replaced the standing rigging this spring, Lyman-Morse didn’t install the studs that came with the rigging—installing them is a pretty involved process, since the giant plate in which they sit is accessible only from the interior of the boat. But I had intended to have the new studs installed when I returned from Europe anyway, so doing it now doesn’t represent incremental work from my perspective.

Other

The only other bits, which are easily fixed, are some issues with equipment at the masthead. Remember that I was concerned about my VHF/AIS antenna? It turns out that the antenna was missing. But it hadn’t unscrewed itself, as I had suspected. It appears to have blown apart. The top of the small “can” at the base of the antenna is gone (together with the wire antenna itself), together with whatever’s usually inside that can. But VHF antennas are easy to replace and relatively inexpensive, so that’s no big deal.

And remember me complaining (I think I did) about my wind instruments not working correctly? Well, that’s explained by the absence of the B&G wind vane at the masthead. The anemometer (wind speed detector) is there, but the vane’s gone missing. Hopefully, B&G sells it as a replacement part, because the overall masthead unit is pretty expensive. But, again, this is easily fixed.

And there are a few smaller things inside the boat that I’ll get fixed/upgraded. For example, the original cabinet latches look nice, but are made of plastic. Over time, they tend to fail, which means cabinet doors don’t stay latched closed. I’ve asked Lyman-Morse to go through the boat and replace these plastic latches with very similar, but better built, ones with stainless steel “insides.” These seem to hold up much better.

Timing

Lyman-Morse is now in the peak season for launching winter-stored boats, so they’re working Resolute into that schedule. The mast was removed last week, so the work on the shroud base is ready to go. And Resolute will be moved into a work bay sometime next week for the interior work and, mostly, to remove the adhesive OSTAR race numbers from her hull—they have great visibility offshore and make it easy to identify the vessel, but they’re a bit “in your face” for other purposes. So I’m having them removed.

I expect to be back in Blue Hill Bay later this month to get the “regular” sailing season started.