Better late than never – this years spring refit is almost finished and we hope to relaunch Proasis next week. The intense work of the past couple of month included the regular winter work such as bottom paint and minor general repairs/maintenance as well as three four major upgrade projects:
- Two new bidirectional centerboards with internal cases in the leeward hull. The boards are set about 80 cm to each side of the middle of the hull. This allows to adjust the balance of the boat by adjusting them. Pulling up the aft one will make the boat turn upwind, pulling up the front one downwind and vice versa. We’ve already tried this on a WAM Proa in the Marshall Islands with great success and adopted it as standard design. For Proasis we expect a better upwind performance as well as an even better balance for singlehanded sailing.
- A new solar array, wiring and a LiFePo battery. We replaced our old, crappy solar panels with something better and more durable and upgraded from a PWM solar charger to a Victron MPPT. Combined with a 1kWh LiFePo battery we hope to get a more powerful and long-lasting setup.
- A new slip trolley. Proasis weights about 750kg and we have to move her about 250 m over a soft sand beach twice a year. Without any access for power vehicles thats quite a challenge. For this year have designed a trolley from galvanized steel with six huge balloon tires on ball bearings. Lets see how good that works.
- Replacement of the beam lashings. Proasis is kept together by rope lashing around the beams and the hulls. Since we launched her for the first time we have never replaced or adjusted them so it was about time. We used the opportunity to carefully measure and realign the hulls and replace the old shock absorbers from rubber.
