Welcome to the wonderful world of the Vindo boats

Have a look at our letters during the year 1998.

Perhaps you can help us with a good answer.

980229

Question: I have a big problem with my teak seats cracking and I assume it is because they were not replaced properly when the cockpit was rebuilt by the previous owner. I do not know how they were originally built because I can't find another boat like mine. Answer: The seats are teak glued to plywood. It's not too difficult to make new ones.



Question: Do you follow Rebecca Whitmans advice of leaving the teak deck unfinished and just keep it clean? It didn't sound right at first but after reading it over and looking at other books she made more and more sense. Answer: It's very wise to leave the teak deck unfinished and just keep it clean. Everybody does so here, and I think it's the best way to preserve it.

980306

Question: My deck is getting worn and I have noticed that it is loose in places. I pulled the bungs and will replace the screw and bungs. I was thinking that I should inject a small amount of epoxy in the hole before I do this. I wonder if you have run into this yet and how you handled it.

980321

Question: I have a Taylor kerosene heater and I am concerned about the open flame. Karl and Mike P. have Wallas heaters and seem to be happy with them. Some on the rec.boats.cruising newsgroup don't seem to think that the forced air heaters like the Wallas are built for continuous duty in cold climates. Any thoughts? I also have been told that the Dickinson gravity feed heaters should not be left running while you are away from the boat. Any experiences with this type of heater? I have also looked at the Volvo ARDIC which is like a Wallas that also allows a hot water hook-up, which although not necessary would be nice if it just used waste heat from the cabin heater.

980329

Question from Mike Kelly: The boat came with the Navico autopilot. I am not sure of its value. Most offshore cruising books claim that autopilots like the Navico are not durable enough for offshore work and I am not sure what you would use one for when coastal cruising. The boat also came with a wind vane and that will probably be more useful. Answer from Karl: I think so too, but I have no personal experience of any type of steering aid. Answer from Sven: I have a Monitor wind vane on my 50 and also an Autohelm 3000. The autopilot is useful when motoring but more or less worthless when sailing. It's much to slow, especially if there are any seas. The Monitor works excellent if there is wind enough.

980418

Question from Barbara Kelly: We are a bit nervous about putting up the mast. I guess we will learn as we go. Any suggestions or advice? We'll let you know how it goes.

980420

Question from Mike Kelly: I want to install an emergency bilge pump. Like a 2000-gallon per hour unit that I would use in case of a failed seacock etc. All the units that I have seen in the catalogs are made to sit at the bottom of the bilge. Unless I am missing something I don't see that I have access to my bilge with an opening big enough to put a 6 inch diameter bilge pump down there. I have a small 2" opening at the edge of my cabin floor at the base of the companionway, and I have small opening under the cockpit by the rudderpost. Is there another access I am missing? The manual pumps use a hose to get to the bottom of the bilge are there electric pumps that work the same way? I have not seen any they all appear to need to be placed at the bottom of the bilge. Thanks for any ideas.

980422

Questions from Curtis Rindlaub and Carol Cartier: I would be happy to share any reconstruction details including deck beam replacement and curved cabin corner rebuilds and the trials and tribulations of rebuilding and repowering Indigo. I would love to hear from anyone who may know more of Indigo's history, and I would be very curious to know what kinds of hull values other Vindos are insured for or what prices they are fetching in the marketplace (there is one in Maine going for $150,000!) Does anyone have any good leads on offshore or Caribbean insurance? Has anyone found a good place to build an icebox on this model? And has anyone had any offshore rig or other failures? I'm setting up an inner forestay for working and storm jibs. Has anyone else done this and do they have advice on dimensions, sheeting, etc.? How about lightning protection with the deck-stepped mast? Has anyone redone their electrical panel (I'm embarassed to say that mine still has the old ceramic fuses with the exposed wires)? Does anyone know anyone who can repair the Wallas heaters? Has anyone replaced them with Espar? Does anyone have one sitting in their basement?

980426

Question from Stan Winikoff: My boat was owned by a wonderful fellow who thought that he was a repairman. The forward edge of the cabin top was somehow scraped, injured, etc. I am not certain what happened to it. In place of the beautiful veneer, he replaced it with upright pieces of veneer and epoxied them in place. What needs to be done is to remove this but then the outermost layer of veneer which is already gone, would need to be replaced. Can this be done by a skilled wood worker or am I only imagining that the damage can be repaired. I do realize that this is only a fair description of the damages but the same issue has arisen in the cockpit where I have had to scarf (is that the word) some veneer to replace parts damaged. This does not look too bad (if one does not do a very close examination) but to do the same on the entire front of the cabintop seems to me to be almost impossible.

980503

William Wiese wrote: I have a copy of the rigging instructions that came with my boat. They cover in some detail the recommended steps in stepping the mast and setting up the standing rigging. It is a great guide particularly for adjusting stays. It does suggest the toggles be used to attach turnbuckles to chain plates. My boat came with them. They will help to prevent bending the turnbuckles. Our Vindo was built in 1984 and we took delivery in early '85. I had never seen one in the flesh but I knew Swedish boats were beautifully built so went for it sight unseen. While it was a foolish risk, I have never been disappointed. It is truly a work of art. The varnish job was so perfect inside and out that I decided to do everything I could to protect it. So I had a custom made canvas cover built which fits over the cabin trunk and another made to zip on the after edge of the dodger and which goes aft to cover the entire cockpit. I have never yet had to remove the original finish and with one exception, two years ago, I have maintained the finish myself. Two years ago I had a professional sand off a coat and lay two on. It looks as good as new. I believe that keeping it covered except when sailing has minimized the upkeep tremendously.

980625

I have got a letter from Hanfred in Germany about dogs at sea. This is some of my answers to his questions. About your dogs at sea. I presume yours is a male Hovawart. I have no experience sailing with a male dog. It is much easier with female ones, Of course they can't use water-toilet either, but they can wait much longer (as long as 8 hours). So we have not had any problems with that. The last resort would be to put them on the foredeck and hope that nature would take care of the problem. How do you take such a dog onboard when there is no gangway? We have trained our dogs to jump aboard the stern of the boat on a specially made board of plywood with rubber glued on it. We put that board into the pulpit, when we take the dogs ashore. It fits nicely into the pulpit. Our dogs have never tried to jump into the water from the boat although they are very fond of swimming. We have special floating aids on them with a handle on the back, so I think it would be rather easy to get them aboard, if they fell in the water.

980824

I have got a letter from roger.saunders@eclipse.co.uk : I'm sorry this is not an answer to a question . I would like to buy a Vindo 40 in a country of the EU ( for tax and other reasons) Can you tell me where I should search? Many thanks for your help.

981011

Greetings from Mike Palumbo in Maine: We had a very rainy June but a good July and August. I spent much time on the boat though no long trips as I had hoped. I did enter a race, my first. We went from Rockland to Castine Maine. I took my son Jon with me, he is 16. The rest of the family did not want to go. My wife does not like to see the rail in the water, especially if the children are on the boat. It was actually a hard sail. Into the wind both legs (it changed 180 degrees overnight). The return leg saw wind as high as 25 knots. We learned quite a bit that weekend. I look forward to doing it again. The boat came out this past week. It will be time to start working on it again to prepare for next season. Last spring I had to remove and replace the transmission. I managed to do it but I would not like to undertake that project again. If you ever need to take your transmission out (I assume it is a Volvo) let me know. There are a few tricks to it and I can save you the bloody knuckles it takes to learn them. I also made a retractable radar mount out of teak. The radar can now swing in and out of the companionway. It looks good.

981020

Today Pia II was taken out of the water and transported to Hasselerod, where she will be resting until next spring after 1.012 nautical miles this summer. I had to put an electric heater inside her, because it will be frost tonight.

981103

Today I found a note in our guest book from Liselott Johnsson from New York: Thank you for a great web site! My husband and I are in the process of buying a Vindö 45 located in the south of Maine. Among many things we would like to strip all the varnish on the boat and do some repairs to the teak seats in the cockpit. Do anyone know of a reputable yard in the area who do excellent finish work? Many thanks. Can anybody over there help them out?

981205

A couple of days ago I got a letter from Per Forsstrom in Norway. He's the lucky owner of a Vindo 30 from 1964/65. He wants to know how many Vindo 30 boats were built during the period 1993 to 1965. If anybody knows, please write me a mail about it!

990101

Question from Sigbjoern Vigeland, Arendal, Norway: Me and my wife owns, since summer 1998, the Vindoe 50, Isabella. She is production number 615, I believe, due to the numbers stamped in all floorboards. She is built in 75 and in fairly good shape. She needs new mizzen and main, some upgrading in sailhandling equipment. She also leaks some drops of water outside of the pipe for the rudder stock. I'm not quite sure how I should be able to repair this. It's not an alarming amont, but If some of the readers have some good ideas, I would be more than happy to hear about it.

 

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Last updated:

1999-04-25

If you think you can answer any of the questions, please send a mail to: removekarl.fredriksson@swipnet.se

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