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. |
|
Go to 1999 ******************************************************** |
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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 |