Como No Refit in New Zealand

[Como No Cruising]

For any that are interested we have pics of our refit, which we accomplished in New Zealand in 2004. Included are photos of the Rudder shaft, which was badly corroded. We ground it out, dryed out the rudder and glassed in a new shaft.

The hull and decks were painted by Austral Yachts. We did most of the prep work (Ann & I ) and stripped the mast for painting. The best part of the job was having a hanger in which to do the work and a shipping container for all the items we removed from the boat while working.

We treated the undertaking like a regular job, working 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week with breaks for lunch and iced tea. Lots of hard work but we enjoyed the experience.

On weekends we had complete access to all the Austral Yachts facilities, workshops and spaces. We watched the luxury daysailer, The Friendship 40 being built from a bare moulding. In fact the Male Plug for the hull was built while we were there.

While the mast was out of the boat it was stripped and painted with the same LPU as the hull and the rigging was replaced. The rigging is all Dyform wire and Norseman fittings. A new Profurl was installed on the Staysail, and works a charm with our cabin house mounted tracks. We had previously removed the staysail boom and self tacking track.

Some of the white Laminate was replaced on the interior, as needed and Laminate was applied to the bulkhead at the companionway and wrapped around into the quarter berth. I believe that this shows up on some of the photos.

Como No has highly varnished teak framed leaded glass companion way doors, which are used only in port. There were a few cracks in the leaded glass of one of the doors and we were able to find an Artisan who was able to replace the damaged pieces with antique glass to match the existing perfectly.

Since we were living in a rental house ($400 month) while all this work was going on we set up shop in the garage where we stripped teak pieces and the brought them indoors to varnish. I bought a washing machine motor and set it up as a bench mounted polishing wheel and used it to put a high polish on all the brass fitting and fixtures that we removed from the interior. The brass was then cleaned thoroughly in solvent and hot soapy water and sprayed with clear lacquer. They still look good today.

Since we stayed in New Zealand for 1-1/2 years we were able to also fit in time to travel in our New, Used Subara wagon--which we sold when we departed N.Z. for Fiji. The car ended up costing us less than $400 U.S in that period.

To see the photos go to: www.picasaweb.goggle.com/boatcomono.

Now Como No is in Isla Mujeres, Mexico and plans to depart for her old home port in Kemah, Texas on or about May 3. Once there we will bring the varnish back up to standard and continue to keep her ready for her next circumnavigation. She should serve her new owners well--if I can't get Ann to go around again.

Cheers and Good Sailing
Will & Annie
Como No, Cape Dory 40 #8

[Kevin Kaldenbach]

Lets us know when you get to town.

[Zeida]

Will and Ann... the link to the picasa website did not work for me... I would love to see the pictures of the refit.

[Como No Cruising]

Zaida: Sorry. Try http://picasaweb.google.com/boatcomono. If that does not work send me a PM with your email address and I will send the photos to you. The above link should get you to my Public photos with pics of various places in our cruise, etc. Let me know.
Will

[MFC]

The last link posted works, you just need to delete the period at the end. In otherwords:

http://picasaweb.google.com/boatcomono

Thanks, Will!

Matt