SV Renaissance

Back on the water

2008-11-19T21:48:00.010-05:00

Well the sailing season has come and gone, what a short season we have up here in New England. The one thing that stands out the most about this season was the wet weather we had. It was great to have our boat back in the water after our adverture last year, and we made the most of it. We splashed in early May but didn't get out of Brewers till the 24th because we had a lot of problems with the fuel system. The engine would start and run for about 15 min then die. After spending a lot of time checking out the fuel system, changing all the fuel lines, fuel filters, and lift pump, we discovered that the cam that drives the pump must be worn down and not delivering enough fuel to keep the engine running. What we ended up doing to resolve this problem was remove the lift pump completely and install an external electric fuel pump. It was really an easy fix just took a lot of hours trouble shooting the problem.

The trip north to Winthrop was uneventful, of course the wind was on the nose, so it was a motor boat ride the weather was nice for this time of year and it took about 4hrs. We had mixed emotions about being back on our mooring, lot of traffic coming by to check out the repairs and welcome us back.

With both of us working our time on the boat was limited to weekends with a couple of long weekends thrown in. The weather this year was the worst we have had, it seamed like it rained almost every weekend, we did a long weekend down to Ptown for the fourth of July and it was one of the best sails since we bought the boat. A nice reach with winds a steady 18 knots, and at times we were hitting 9 knots speed over water, and made the trip in a little over 5 hours. Of course the trip home was a motor boat ride with fog so thick we were lucky if we had 100 feet of visiblity. The new chartplotter/radar was a great aid as we didn't see anything till we were entering the main channel into Boston. The MARPA feature on the radar is amazing, makes tracking other traffic a lot easier, glad we upgraded the radar.

Galley finished

2008-06-15T16:37:00.000-04:00

Well after a long 11 months the galley is done. We still have a lot of varnishing to do and it will be done as the season goes on. At least we have our boat back and we can get to some sailing. The corin tops look great and should be able to withstand any abuse we can give them. As the sailing season goes on we will let you know how the new systems work out, should be real nice not having to make ice runs to keep the beer cold with the new refrigeration system. We also added a portable icemaker for the frozen drinks, and the bowthruster should make docking a lot easier when the wind blows.

New bowthruster

2008-06-10T18:09:00.000-04:00

As you can see from the pictures below, the bow thruster has been installed. This should make it a lot easier getting in and out of those tight docks we always seem to get when we are cruising. We decided on the Side Power thruster model sp 125 ti . This is a 12 volt unit, with 275 lbs of thrust, 8.7 hp twin prop and fits in a 9.8" tunnel. This is the most powerful thruster available in a 12 volt version. Can't wait to try it out

Counter tops installed

2008-05-22T16:45:00.002-04:00

The new corin tops have been installed in the galley, now the rest of the cabinets can be built and the galley sink installed. The openings that you see are the openings for the freezer and refer
boxes. We are hoping the work will be done this week so we can get some coats of varnish on before launch.

Before and after

2008-05-18T18:09:00.004-04:00

Here are a couple of before and after pictures of

the hull. Just the port hole has to be cut in and

then we can start the brightwork. As you can

see the new paint job is fantastic

New paint job

2008-04-15T17:42:00.012-04:00

As last Renaissance has her new paint job, looks great she has been moved out of the paint shop and into the storage building and it was tough to get good pictures. After many hours of sanding and priming and more sanding, priming, the final coats of awlgrip cloud white was sprayed. The the boot stripes were masked off and the crimsion red sprayed on. The guys who did the work were saying it was a big boat to paint, boy I remember when Carole and I did it two years ago when the boat was in our yard.

Interior update

2008-04-15T17:19:00.007-04:00

Well the progress continues, as you can see in the first picture the tops are cut out for the refrigeration boxes. The old boxes were a lot smaller and the old freezer box was top loading and it also had a door for front loading which lost a lot of cold air if used so we chose to do away with it.

The second picture is looking fordward. Most of the new teak trim is installed and now we are waiting for the new corian tops to come in.

The third picture is the repair to the aft cabin that also recieved damage from the impact. Other than new coats of varnish this repair work is done.

The last picture is the new deck step installed. there is still some work to be done to the deck and that should be finished within the next two weeks

Rub rail and Cap rail

2008-04-14T22:00:00.005-04:00

The new rub rail and cap rail have been installed,
Mike did a great job splicing the new work to the existing rail and now we can start the many coats of varnish.

Galley rebuild

2008-04-06T21:17:00.015-04:00

Now that the glass work to the hull is complete it's time to rebuild the new galley. These pictures show the new cabinet being rebuilt.

The new refrigeration boxes are installed there are two boxes inside. one will be a refrigerator the other will be the freezer. Both boxes are insulated with 6" of foam on all sides. There will be two compressors, one for each box and will be independent of each other. Still having the design worked out for the plates but it looks like there will be two cold plates for the refrigerator and one sub zero plate for the freezer. Both boxes will be top loading, and the comperssors will be both 12 volt and 120 volt for power. We chose to do away with the existing engine driven compressor to save wear and tear on the diesel engine, and we can run the system off the battery bank when on the hook. We can also run the system when charging the batteries with the generator, or just plug in when we are in a slip.

We were able to save the old draws as they did not get damaged from the collision. You can also see that the cabinet work is underway in the aft stateroom. The top of the cabinets will be done in corian and we are replacing the old galley sink that was only 4" deep with a new double sink that is 8" deep

Hull repair

2008-03-27T21:41:00.002-04:00

Well the glass work to the hull has started, the first picture shows the first layer of glass being applied. Where the hull was grinded down below the waterline xrays were taken to see if there was any damage done where the hull flexed from the impact. Although there were some slight stress cracks it was determined to be just surface damage.

The second and third picture show the glass laid up both inside and outside which was done in layers.

The fourth picture shows the completed glass work, the strake lines cut in and the first coat of prime

Renaissance Rammed

2008-03-19T21:02:00.000-04:00

Here are some pictures of our boat after it was rammed by a runaway harbormaster's boat last summer. Damage was over $100,000. We just launched the boat 4 weeks before after doing a complete five year refit. The boat is now in Brewers Boatyard where repairs are being done. We hope to be in the water this comming spring. We will post more pictures of the repair as they are done

S/V Renaissance

2008-03-11T16:59:00.003-04:00

Hi everybody Dennis & Carole here, glad to see a new site for Vagabonds. We are currently up in New England, hope to be out cruising by 2009. Still finishing up on our refit but we are getting closer