Refitting pt.1
During the winter of 2022/2023
After Vela weathered the fierce storm in November, we finally managed to get her on land at the end of January. It was clear she needed a thorough overhaul, and it was time for some serious maintenance.
However, we had to wait a little longer. I had to finish my internship in Copenhagen, while Christian was working in Greenland with the Navy. Those three months felt like an eternity as we both anxiously waited to return to Sønderborg and tend to Vela.
When the time finally came, we had her hauled out in Nordborg on the island of Als, at the Nordborg Yard. It was about a half-hour drive from Sønderborg, so we decided to buy a car to make the commute a bit easier. This marked the beginning of our journey to restore Vela, bringing her back to her full glory after the storm.
When we both finally got home to Sønderborg, we were ready to get started on the work!
One of the first tasks we tackled was removing the rudder so we could replace the rudder bearing. This was something our surveyor had pointed out when we bought the boat. It wasn't urgent, but he recommended we change it the next time the boat was on land. The rudder had probably never been separated from the boat before; the entire rudder quadrant was completely rusted, making it incredibly difficult to loosen. Christian spent hours and days figuring out how to free it— not only was it severely rusted together, but it was also in an extremely awkward position, making it hard to apply force. With a bit of help from the shipyard and the right tools, we finally managed to loosen the rudder quadrant and take the pieces apart.
Since we had already taken out the rudder, it made sense to replace our black jack around the propeller shaft. It's water-lubricated and had started to show some wear, so it didn’t take much to cause a few drops to leak through the seal. We gave everything a lot of care! The shaft had some small rust spots that we sanded away, and the propeller got a generous amount of fresh grease!
It’s incredibly satisfying to know when it was last checked, and now we can relax in the cockpit with peace of mind and enjoy the upcoming summer in Sweden!
After living on the boat for nearly two years, you start to figure out what works onboard and what doesn’t quite work as well. Space is tight in the galley, so we saw an opportunity to gain a bit more counter space and some extra cabinet space. We decided that the microwave, which was installed when the boat was first built, wasn’t really necessary. It was big and bulky, and it also used quite a bit of power. While we’re not ruling out having something similar onboard again in the future, for now, we’d rather have more room to work in the galley.
It was a relatively easy little project that gave us a good sense of how we can reuse some of the materials we remove from the boat to maintain the same style. We think the result turned out great.
We also finally installed the new nameplate for Vela, replacing the electrician's tape we used to spell out the name on our way home from Portugal—it was a requirement that the name in the papers matched what was on the boat. In addition to that, we tackled the more “ordinary tasks” such as cleaning the deck, polishing the topsides, and applying bottom paint.
And BAM! Before we knew it, Vela was back in her rightful watery element, we moved back on board, and even welcomed our new family member a few days later! 🐶
