Category: Building Blog

Spring refit 2024

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.
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Spring Refit Finished

The spring refit is finally completed! We’ve done many small things to improve Proasis, the bigger projects include:

  • Repair of old crash damage (not our fault!)
  • Additional front and back windows for 360° vision from inside the cabin
  • New leeboard
  • New leeboard mount
  • Wetbox for anchor, chain, fender etc.
  • Toe rails
  • Rudder handles
  • Longer mast for less sweep of the sail and better upwind performance
  • Ne electrical installation including navigation lights
  • New bottom paint
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Spring Refit

In preparation for the upcoming season we are busy with the typical spring refit and some updates we were planning for a while now. Aside of a new bottom paint and the repair of a dent left by a yacht 2 years ago we finally get a larger leeboard! In addition we cut another hatch in the bow compartment and built in a wet deck for the anchor, chain and other stuff. The wet deck is much like a self draining cockpit, the floor is well above the water line and drain holes allow any water to flow back into the ocean. Because of that the hatch cover does not need to be water tight and is therefore much easier and cheaper to build.

Proasis will get navigation lights (not as easy as it sounds for a boat that travels both ways, maybe this will become another post!), a fully reworked wiring and two additional windows for 360° view from inside the cabin. We hope to hit the water by mid of may.

Now larger leeboard mount. The size of the old mount can be seen by the interrupted black stripe (carbon tow). The old cord length was 300 mm, the new is 420 mm.
Cutting the opening for the anchor hatch. The cut was done extra careful because the cut-out was repurposed as hatch cover later on.
Uncomfortable sanding inside of the bow compartment: Christian is actually hiding inside the hull equipped with a grinder and vacuum cleaner to prepare the sides for the wet deck.

High and Dry

Sad but true: we have already winterized Proasis. We need to do some work on the bottom of the hulls anyway and I (Henrik) will soon go back to the Marshall Islands for half a year (make sure you stay tuned, updates will follow!).

We had the great advantage of using an electric winch and some nice custome made trolleys to pull her up the beach this time. The task was done very quickly and didn’t took many people.

New Reefing System Trialed

After some delay we finally managed to modify our new sail for the reefing system. We have designed an innovative system using a long zipper parallel to the trailing edge of the sail. In strong winds the aft part of the sail is simply zipped of. It works well so far but time will tell whether this is manageable in high winds and swell or not. We will keep you posted!

Sail cut in two to sew in the zipper. Weird feeling to take scissors and cut a nice new sail!
Zipper is on, quite difficult with the small sewing machine.
First test sail with the zipper in. The wrinkles disappear in anything above 5 kn of wind.

COP26 Climate Conference

We are proud and honored to get the opportunity to advocate for climate action as part of the delegation of the Marshall Islands at COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. We had two very nice events where we presented the achievements of Waan Aelõñ in Majel (Canoes of the Marshall Islands) in gaining climate change resilience by reviving the traditional outrigger canoe designs as part of the GIZ implemented Low Carbon Sea Transport Project (LCST).

A recorded video of our session is here available on demand (requires free registration).