When a boat gets to the age of Kudu, 33, it’s probably had a few owners, and these owners have usually had their own little way of running the lines, preferred cabin modifications, brackets for the GPS etc. Of course, some of these owners were more handy at performing jobs than others, so a thirty three year old boat tends to be riddled with evidence of past modifications; patches of filler, holes drilled in strange places, who’s reason for existence is as baffling as Stone Henge itself.

I am no different to those owners, I am going to make my own modifications.

The Corribee is undoubtedly a seaworthy boat, but from the moment their hulls were prized from the molds at Newbridge Yachts, most of them were destined for a life inshore. Day sailing on a lake, the occasional sprint across a bay, or perhaps for the more adventurous of owners a dash across the far side of the local estuary for a few nights away from base. There’s nothing wrong with this of course, it’s the staple diet of British sailing, but it’s not exactly a breeding ground for oceanic modifications or design.

The Corribee has great big windows, for example. They’re perfect for keeping the cabin awash with light on those jolly dashes around the estuary, but when it comes to protecting itself from the crushing pressure of huge breaking waves, then the perspex sheets make a poor substitute for glass reinforced plastic.

Nope, if I am going to be heading into deep water with my little boat, then I have a lot of work to do before hand.

Floating

A reasonably important aspect of a boat is its buoyancy. In fact, it’s kind of essential. The default action to most sailors when notified about a hull breach would be to swipe the grab bag, lob the life raft overboard and await rescue as their portable island sinks to the depths. I do not fancy suffering that, especially in the middle of at Atlantic, so Kudu will be made unsinkable.

Now, I know at this point some of you will be thinking thoughts involving the word ‘Titanic’, but assure you, you are wrong. Keeping 1.5 tons of Corribee on the surface is somewhat easier and more fool proof than 52,000 tons of ship.

So, the plan is to fill as many voids in the boat as possible with foam. If I can have a theoretical displacement of the weight of the boat in foam within the cabin, then I could ram adrift containers until my heart is content and suffer no more than wet feet and slow progress.

This, to me, seems like a much safer tactic than jumping into a inflatable toy and hoping for the best.

A safe haven

Kudu is rain proof. The skies can absolutely throw it down outside, and inside I’m all dry and cosy, but when Kudu arrived safely at her marina in September I gave her a good wash down. Out came the hosepipe and the deck got a good covering of water before I went to work with a sponge, then hosed off again to finish.

When I had packed up all the washing gubbins I went below to find water everywhere. Unlike rain, falling almost straight down, the water from the hose took whatever angle my hand gave it, and so a good portion of the water that arrived on the deck made its way up under the hatch and into the cabin. Unlike the relative trickle of a hose, a wave would not only make life on board rather unpleasant, but it would give the bilge pump a bit of a workout too.

This is obviously no good, so for the Jester, Kudu will undergo some surgery to her hatches. The forehatch will be glassed in place, but the companion way still has a question mark over it. Ideally I’d like to seal up the washboards and replace the sliding hatch with a hinged, and water tight Houdini style hatch, but I’m reluctant to do this since it makes living on the boat impractical. This area still needs thought, but without question, it is an problem that needs attention before I can set off.

Power

Kudu has no means of charging her own battery. I plan on adding a Rutland 513 wind turbine and two solar cells. The 513 doesn’t seem to throw out enough power to realistically keep the batteries up, but it’s bigger brother is just too big for Kudu, so I’m going to supplement it with the two solar cells. One either on the deck aft of the mast, or at the stern mounted over the stern locker lid, and one over the forehatch. I was going to run it all into one battery, the 85ah that’s currently on board, but a career in computing has taught me to spot single points of failure and sort them out.

Kudu doesn’t have room for two large leisure batteries, so I’m thinking that I may perhaps create a separate, self contained “power station” forward using a small 12v motorcycle gel battery and a solar cell. It will happily sit there and stay maintained, and provide emergency power should something fail with the main system.

Finding America

I would love to navigate all the way with nothing more than a sextant and map, and I will try and learn how to do so before I set off, but the reality of the situation is I’m not going to be able to rely on that, so my navigation will be battery powered. I will have a GPS chart plotter, as well as a backup hand held GPS. Vital details of distance from the pub will needless to say, still be plotted on a paper chart.

Forces of nature

I’m not happy with Kudu’s rig. The forestay is attached to the bow roller, which is in turn bolted to the deck with an aluminium back plate. This, to my mind, is no good. I plan on making a steel bracket that will have a strap running down, and bolted through, the bow. Any force is ultimately on the hull then, not on the much weaker deck.

The spars are a bit too ‘day sailer’ too. The mast is 33 years old and while it’s by no means knackered, I’d prefer a more substantial mast for ocean work. If funds allow, I shall sort this. Perhaps I can’t afford not to?

Forces of man

Sailing a boat singlehanded with a poor running rigging setup is a crap experience. Having to dash forward to change a sail or work at the mast to raise a halyard or reef is just a pain in the backside, believe me. This is just from my experience sailing in rivers too, when you add an ocean into the mix the whole affair would become incredibly dangerous, and so I need to make sure Kudu is as easy to control as possible.

Kudu already has roller furling which is a delightful thing after owning a leisure 17 without, and most lines lead aft, but once they get there things are lacking somewhat. The winches are non existant. I don’t know the name for them, but they aren’t really winches, just things that spin and help a little bit with handling the genoa. Tedious, and unsafe. I will be replacing these with self tailing winches. I only need small one’s which will help keep the cost down.

The other lines – halyards, topping lift, reefing (main) and furling, all terminate on cleats. This is kind of ok, but I’d prefer cams which will make adjustments much faster and neater.

I will also be completely replacing the running rigging. All of it. Some of it is a bit tatty and I want to replace the lot and introduce my own colour scheme, not for looks, for quick identification.

TBC