I thought it would be quick to just fix up the important things and sail on very early in spring. I been hearing and reading that people take years to fix up their vessel before cruising the world. I had to learn myself how much work it is. After I started to take my boat a part and look in to details and questioning the quality of it. Things just accumulated in crazy way. I soon started to drown in work and freeze in decision making. There been so many things where I could just not evaluate the relevance of it and everything seemed to be connected with everything before I could finish one task I had to think of many more projects which would be affected by my current project making me go insane not being able to focus or have the feeling of moving anywhere. It would be filling pages of all the work and the mistakes and thoughts and pro and cons and complications and and and all that stupid s… stuff I had to learn. To cut that “and and and” short I will give a list of most topics I been working on and some (not) fun facts about it.

• Engine
  • Cooling cycle, having too much corrosion which closed the original cycle, a broken gasket on the thermostat, it took me many days and reworks to understand and get it working. With “my-style” second cycle rewiring the cooling system.
  • Fuel system, changing the Diesel tank, adding a pre filter,  venting the system, checking for leaks and redoing some joints.
  • Rewiring the charging cable to the starter battery – adding a battery isolator.
• Rig
  • renewing all electrical wiring on the mast, installing two VHF antenna, a WIFI antenna,  a weather/wind sensor and new lights, new windex.
  • adding halyard for a storm sail on the mast, renewing and reworking the terminals of the shroud und stays, renewing and reworking the cross trees, renewing all halyards, adding some cleats.
  • changing the reefing system on the main sail
  • renewing the shroud screws on the deck and adding some additional structure and rebuilding the sandwich a one shroud screw.
• Deck
  • closing the water and diesel input and rebuilding the sandwich
  • extending the Genoa rail  
  • adding deflection roller in to the cockpit for the reefing
  • adding a new higher handrail at the aft around the cockpit
  • renewing and heightened the sea railings

• Electrics
  • renew most cables, rewire everything, build a new switching box
• Drinking water
  • take out the old system it’s been old, dirty and been build in a stupid way and not giving much storage by using lots of volume and having tubes through aft cabin, pantry and salon. But I didn’t have the time to rebuild it for long.
• Sailing instruments
  • Build a display frame and re wire the log, depth sounder and meteoman
• Interior
  • rip out plenty of old half rotten interior, which been a very nasty work.
  • partly finish the insulation “second skin idea” it’s been lots of work and didn’t help to make the boat sail, therefore I paused that project for long.  
  • add new shelf’s behind the seating, which had been wasted space before.

Sure this list is incomplete and doesn’t give a picture of trouble I had with it. But if you don’t know boats it is hard to imagine how much “fun”  this is. If there is just no space to work, no workshop, no space to store the stuff one had to remove from a certain corner of the vessel where I have just started working on. And I been working on most things parallel or rather could not finish one before having finished or started another. While living in this mess and trying to move the projects it drove me crazy. And it’s been winter, not a could one but if inside is as worm as outside (for most time) then it feels quit cold. Heating been too expensive or just a waste.  To avoid the moister problem I decided to just keep everything open all the time so the winter wind goes through and keeps it dry. If your “bedroom” and “workshop” has more than 5°C is doable and more than 10°C is really ok. One gets used to it – I did not get a cold.

Well and a few words to Cuxhaven, that city where I stayed much longer then intended. In general I learned, what is a place without the people you know there. Up on arrival I knew no one in Cuxhaven and there surely are nicer places for a winters fix up. Well there has been little distraction from work unless you have a favor for very old retired people. After a short time I thought to have meat all interesting and nice people and all people in my generation in that town (probably not objectively true). But I have to say and underline these great people I met there made it doable, they  helped and advised me along and I hope to see them again (!)  and thank them very much for their support!! Thanks!