At the end of March I blogged about finishing off the tiller while in lockdown. Since then a few lucky folks have been able to briefly return to the water for quick days out and to make sure their boats are secure.

Rosie Free is safely tucked up inside a workshop so I have had no need to check on her since.

In the meantime I’ve been following the exploits of other Westerly Centaur owners. Reading the accounts of others inspecting keel fixings, fibreglass, engines, gelcoat and many other things.

I’ve been mentally accumulating a bigger and more ambitious list of jobs, where before it was more “do the urgent things” and a cosmetic spruce up to get us sailing again I’ve now decided to embark on some more significant work, accepting that for the near-term I’m unlikely to be able to spend any significant amount of time on the water this year anyway. So, here are my new jobs!

Keels

Rosie Free’s keels were rebedded in 2015 according to my records. There is no cosmetic evidence of corrosion or movement around the bolts themselves but there are some things in and around the keels that I now need to do:

• I plan to remove all of any brittle fibreglass I find in the areas around both keels, fillet and re-glass the existing hull/bulkhead joins inside the lockers
• Also add several new ribs for strength.

The left photo above is from Jonathan Webb’s boat, the right side is the same area of Rosie Free. I will probably have to remove one of the keel bolts in order to add a rib here.

I also need to give some attention to the outside of the keels, there is only light iron rust on both but the black sealant (presumably sika) on the starboard side does not look right. So the plan for this is to sand the keels back to metal, coat them both in fertan and then to paint then antifoul the hull as normal. When lift-in day comes to then give the keels a good wiggle to see if there is any movement, if there is, cancel the lift in, store on a boat stand and fix (and probably cry a bit).

Gearbox and Engine

The gearbox job has always been on the list. The current MSB gearbox does “work” but is very very difficult to get out of reverse. I HOPE that the replacement gearbox I have will do the trick (to my untrained eye it does look less worn inside)

I will ask our boat yard to do the gearbox, I have quite a long drive to get there and it would be a better use of resources for a proper engineer to do the job than for me to learn by mistakes.

Sails and Ropes

This is a job I can do from home! I brought all the sheets and sails home intending to wash the sheets and keep the sails inside a dry house for the winter.

But since the weather is becoming nicer at home maybe now is a good time to unroll the sails in our garden and give them a good proper inspection and try to repair anything if needed. The genoa UV strip probably has another year or two left. The main has an annoying green patch where the stack-pack didn’t fit properly so now is a good chance to clean that off at home. Maybe I can purchase some stick on letters and add the missing “CR” from the sail.

Electrics

Rosie’s electrics all “work” but were not done very recently. With the damage done to the pulpit I also had to disconnect the bow navigation lights. While Rosie is in the workshop I will have access to mains power. Trying to do electrical work using a USB powered soldering iron didn’t go well last year.

So before she goes back in the water I want to tidy up the existing non-engine electrics (engine stuff looks fine so I won’t disturb it) and replace the original Westerly switch/fuse panel with a more modern one.

Hull

On Rosie’s port side there is a very long cosmetic scrape out of the gelcoat, presumably from a careless hire boat visiting Horsey Staithe last year. Thanks to the helpful advice of the WoA on a recent Zoom presentation I am now more confident that I can fix these cosmetic GRP problems given the time. I already have gelcoat filler that quite closely matches the colour of the topsides and will probably invest in a rotary polisher and maybe a dremel to help the pre-fixing cleanup.

In addition to the scrape I have two osmosis blisters to fix on the rudder.

Hull Fittings

Rosie no longer has a sea toilet but does still have the through-hull fittings. We have the traditional two blakes bronze seacocks for the toilet. They are both ceased up shut so I will need to service them both. If there turns out to be significant pinking inside I may consider simply removing them altogether and glassing up the holes.

The cockpit drain seacocks are more of a worry. Out of the water there is clearly a brownish stain leading from them out into the water. They are quite heavy duty but still need to be inspected. I may invest in a cheap USB boroscope for this job.

Deck

Centaurs don’t have a lot of woodwork outside but I do need to give all of it attention. From memory there are no visibly damaged parts to replace so probably just a good sanding and oiling all round.

I do need to touch up the blue non-slip paint though.

Gear

The sheet winches need a service, they work but do feel like they could do with some grease inside.