About the Vindo yard. I haven't been able to find any e-mail address to the Vindo yard. In fact the original yard doesn't exist anymore. There are two companies on the Vindo island (in Swedish Vindön, about 10 km from the town of Uddevalla) now a days. They repair boats, including Vindos, and you can order them to manufacture parts for a Vindo.

Vindö Marin AB
Vindön, Nötesund
S-473 91 Henån
Sweden
Phone: +46304392 90 or cell phones +46704239295 or +46704239293.
Fax: +46304393 83

E-mail: info@vindomarin.se 

Vindö Service
Per Olsson
Vindön 3674
S-440 90 Henån
Sweden
Phone: +46030439675

Some Vindo boats have a wheel steering gear made by Wargia. I have called Wargia in Vanersborg (30 km from Uddevalla, where I live) and they told me that they don't manufacture boat steerings any more but they have spare parts for sale. You can contact them by phone, fax or letter. 

Wargia Mekaniska Verkstad AB
Tenggrenstorpsvägen 17
S-462 56 VÄNERSBORG
Sweden
Phone: +46521131 00 
Fax: +46521131 06

Anders Björck has been discussing with Arild Andersen how to remove the rudder of a Vindo 50.

The Vindö 50 rudder is attached to the hull at three different places.
A. The rudder axis that goes vertically through the top part of the rudder. The rudder axis has a wedge that forces the rudder to turn when the axis is turned.
B. Just below the "hole" for the propeller, it is fixed through two bronze "clamps"
C. At the bottom a stainless steel tap is resting in a hole in cast bronze "housing"

This is Anders' piece of advice:
On ground:
1. Remove the nut at the bottom of the rudder axis.
Under the cockpit floor:
1. Remove the rudder quadrant from top of the rudder axis.
2. Unscrew the big nut that now is on top of the rudder axis (actually it is two nuts since one is used to lock the other one). The big nut is also keeping the greased seal tight.
3. Lift the axis; it helps if somebody is on the ground pushing the axis upwards, or maybe loosely tapping on it with a hammer.
4. Loosely refit the axis so the rudder is fixed while the clamps of B are removed.
On ground
Unscrew the bronze clamps B.
Under the cockpit floor again:
Lift the axis again while somebody is holding on to the rudder. Now the rudder can be tilted backwards and the rudder can be lifted so the stainless steel tap at the bottom of the rudder comes out of the bronze housing C.

When he did this job he also completely removed the bronze housing C, and noticed that all the brass !!!!! bolts that held it in place had corroded away. He wanted to replace them with bronze bolt to avoid galvanic corrosion. That turned out to be extremely expensive. Instead he refitted the bronze housing C with stainless steel bolts as well as plenty of epoxy. It is probably impossible to remove it again.

Ronny Möller wrote to me: I see that you are going to build a new steering pedestal. I did that for Linnea, my 1976 Vindö 40 this year. I used 9 mm birch plywood of the highest grade (it is made up of a greater number of sheets and is much stronger than either mahogany or teak plywood). I then covered this with 3mm teak (the thickest available, at least here in Sweden). My corner strips were in reasonable shape and I got away with fixing just the bottom part of two of them and could then reuse the old ones. The top piece I made of solid teak planks glued together in 3 layers.

I have varnished the top piece but kept the rest as it is and the teak have by now acquired that nice gray color of the deck.

Gluing teak is tricky since it is very oily. Always sand the surface just before bonding to minimize the amount of oil on the surface. I used both epoxy and polyurethane glues and I think the latter is to be preferred. A good idea is to wet the surface with a little water before applying the polyurethane. This will make the bond stronger.

RIchard Stegeman  discovered a very nice book last month and wrote me a letter about it. "The World's best sailing boats" by Ferenc Mate. It contains a very nice chapter about Vindos, with a description (and photo's) of the construction, outstanding characteristics, etc. It feels good to own a boat that is regarded as one of the world's best
sailing boats (but of course all Vindo owners already know that) ;-)

If you want to know more about it contact Richard, removetien.richard@zonnet.nl

To use the address remove "remove".