Fayaway winter/spring projects

[Crazer]

I've been busy outfitting Fayaway for some future voyages this spring and thought I'd share some of my projects. We've been very lucky in that we've weather the pandemic well so far, both in terms of being healthy and having the resources to stay busy with boat projects. Before this all started I built the boat a dodger and my boat partner and I replaced the chainplates, which were in very poor condition. This was a big job that involved cutting access through the hull liner, cutting away fiberglass to access the steel reinforcements and then prying out what remained of that so we could glass and install new backing plates. We reinforced the hull with carbon fiber cloth and used a single 1/4" by 4" by 36" piece of G10 as a back plate for all three chainplates on each side. This basically replicates the original system with modern materials. There's over an inch and a half of material there between the deck, hull joint and new glass and backing plate so I feel confident that it's very strong. We did basically the same thing for the backstay chainplate as well. The old steel there was completely rusted away and I felt lucky we didn't have any problems with it while we were sailing in high winds.

I've also been working on building a nesting tender using plans from B&B Yacht Designs. They are a great company, very accessible and helpful and building the boat has been a joy. The boat is now almost structurally complete, and I hope to have it done for our planned DelMarVa circumnavigation next month.

Finally, I managed to settle on a new electronics suite for the boat to replace the old Sitex chartplotter and out of production AIS that I can't get reprogrammed. I'm going to an iPad with a waterproof case on a Ram mount where the chartplotter was, with a Vesper WiFi enabled AIS transponder and external GPS antenna. Eventually I'll expand the system with a laptop down below and an IridiumGO to get weather data offshore. I like the modularity of the system and it was a lot cheaper than a new chartplotter of similar capability. I also like that I can see the same data on my phone in my bunk, giving me peace of mind when the crew is steering!

[Bubba the Pirate]

Good work!