As with many older boats, haphazard additions and jury rigs had taken their toll on Sonrisa’s wiring and it looked like a ball of colorful spaghetti. Â In addition the electrical panels were installed in a bulkhead so that they backed into the starboard lazarette. Â This was the factory design, but it rendered the lazarette almost useless. Â Items had to be placed in there with the greatest of care for fear of snagging the wiring, and they had to be dry,…
One issue that we knew we’d have to deal with when we bought Sonrisa was her 30 year old engine that would only start after we’d had an electric heater aimed at it for 15 minutes, and then only if we were lucky. So, although neither of us are mechanics, and we had no idea what we were doing, we set out to replace the engine. We did most of the work at the dock. We disconnected everything, moved the…
When we bought Sonrisa she was set up for fair weather sailing only. Â She had no reefing gear (the boom was a bare pole) and, although meant to be a cutter, the inner forestay was not rigged. Â Not wanting to tempt the weather gods, we decided to install some reefing gear and re-rig the inner forestay so we could fly a staysail. Â The reefing gear was relatively easy, two cheek blocks, two cleats, a hook at the gooseneck, and voila,…