Dalpol Yacht owners group

I was contacted recently regarding the Phobos yacht and as I do personally know some other owners, I thought that it would be a great idea to create the Facebook group called "Dalpol Yacht Owners".

I think we should connect all together and share the ideas, sail trips or even sell your boat.

If you are the Phobos owner or just love these boats, you are more than welcome to join!

3D model and panoramic view

The Dalpol boatyard has just released a 3D model of their sailboats. It's not very accurate compared to the real boat, but still cool. Check this Link to page if the preview bellow does not work.


This is the 360° panoramic view of the charter version:


and the deluxe version:


More information on the official website.

Hull vinyl wrapping

This is a nice example, how to change the color of the hull pretty fast and easy.



I'm not sure about the price, but it will protect the hull from UV rays and I can imagine changing the hull color every two or three years :-)

Christmas gifts

This year's Christmas were rich in marine gifts for our boat so I would like to share some interesting ones with you.

Special anchor for rocky shores with a railing holder. This kind of anchor is very handy on rocky shores like on Adriatic sea in Croatia. Simply throw the anchor to the shore and it will grab immediately without need to leave the boat. I think it's not very secure for strong winds, but the local people use it to ease the anchoring during a day when single handed. You can always put a piece of chain over the rocks afterwards for the overnight stay.

The boat name on the stainless steel anchor

Anchoring / mooring reel with 50m of the line and the Ronstan 60 series continuous-line roller furler and the anti-twist rope for an additional sails.
 

Anchoring/mooring reel, anchor, roller furled & anti-twist rope

We are planning the additional Gennaker, Blister or Code-0 for the next season, because there is no other

worse experience than staying boat when others are moving :-)

However, this Ronstan 60 series is not a top-down system so we have to buy a sail with straight luff and let the anti-twist rope sew in. More on this on the next post.

SOG FF23-CP Nautical knife

A nautical knife like this SOG FF23-CP is a no-nonsense lock back design with a rescue-style blade, marlin spike for rope work. Ordered directly from China. Every mariner should have some handy knife on board in case of emergency. The question is not if you will ever need it but when!

The last gift was the head flashlight and some accessories. This is however a subject of the next post.

Marry Christmas and Happy New Year ! 

Skipper Tomas' guide to winterizing

The winterizing process is commonly discussed among the sailors so I would like to put together all important steps I do on our boat. Over the years I own the boats I came to a resolution that all systems on the boats has to be extremely simple, reliable and of course very easy to maintain, because we want to sail more than doing an unnecessary maintenance.

Cover

• I think it is important to keep the boat dry over the winter season so parking it in a garage is the best but putting over some heavier tarp is a minimum. Personally, I have a tarp made from a material used for truck trailers, which is around 500g/m2. Yes, it's heavy, but will last more than 1 year and protects the boat perfectly
• To avoid wear through by various sharp hardware or stanchions always puts over some piece of protective material like carpet leftovers. On the picture below, you can see that I've used plastic plumbing tees on the top of the stanchions.
• I always build some kind of netting from side to side to prevent the build up of water pools on the tarp.
• Support the mast properly in case of heavy snow.



Additional mast support in the cockpit and the rope netting




• To prevent the water condensation I always keep the front hatch open a little to provide some ventilation, but it's necessary to put over some bug screens.

Electronics

• Remove battery from the boat, store in a dry basement and charge it once after two months or so. 
• Take home all portable electronics or remove all batteries from it.

Cabin's junk

• It's always a good idea to clean the boat, because you will always find some nice pieces of forgotten food or any other bio materials which just attracts the mold or ants.
• Remove all chemicals which could be damaged by freezing temperatures.
• Take home all the clothing and sleeping bags. Everything that can absorb moisture can produce stinky odors.
• Take home cushions or store on their sides.

Water systems

• Put a cup of bleach into the water tank and let it sit. 
• Empty the water tank completely, including the water pipes. You can use a non-toxic antifreeze based on propylene glycol, but it you don't have complex plumbing, it's just expensive and won't save you much time.
• Clean the water tank from inside. This is a substantial difference over the flexible water bags!
• Empty and clean the chemical toilet.

Sails

• Sails are the main engine of the boat so they need care so clean them if necessary
• Put them off the furler, fold them properly into the sail bag and bring them home.

Engine

• It's better to take off the outboard from the bracket to avoid unnecessary stress on the stern.
• Change the motor and lower unit gear oil - according to the manufacturer manual.
• Spray some fogging like oil into the cylinders.
• Empty the fuel tanks in the car or pour in some fuel stabilize.
• Desalinate the engine cooling using a mild vinegar solution.

Trailer

• Check for corrosion and touch up if necessary
• Jack it up on some stands to ease the load on the axles and tires.





• You can also check that all the lights are working and the wheels are spinning without any noise or other issues which you can address during the winter time.
• Check the hand-brake if it works properly.

As you can see this is not a rocket science, so having only a simple system on the boat helps you to spare some time to other aspects of life.

Oh boy, it's winter again

This weekend we have finally prepared our joy for the winter months. Almost everything, including the sails, battery, clothing and so on is stored at home to keep them dry. Then I poured a little bleach into the water tank and flushed the hoses. Then I've removed all the water from the hoses and the tank and cleaned the water tank via the inspection hole. This is essential to keep it clean because after one year of use there was a nice junk. I would strongly warn anyone against the flexible water tanks, because you cannot clean them!

The first thing is to jack the trailer and put it on the concrete blocks to ease the axles.

concrete blocks to lift the trailer and ease the axles

Then raised the mast a little and added the wooden A frame to support the mast in case of heavy show and finally wired the line netting from side to side to prevent water collection on the tarp.

additional mast support

bow mast support bar

32mm plastic pipe tee to prevent tarp chafing from the stanchions

Then I leave the forward hatch slightly open to let it breathe with the bug screen to avoid bee's nests in the cabin.

One word about the tarp. This is very heavy tarp used on truck trailers which is very durable, but a bit struggle to put it on. Still in a good shape after ~8 years I own it since I bought our first sailboat.

So now it's time to rest and buy some new marine stuff for the Xmas :-)

Getting ready for the first splash

Chapter 1: Getting ready for the first launch

Over the last weekend we finished preparing for the first launch. I had to put on the labels and the boat name and my wife did the last cleaning and storing all kinds of dishes and stuff.

boat name and registration number

I'm planning to add the waterline stripes, but I have to measure it when the boat is in the water. 

7.5kg Bruce anchor

nice and cozy .. not for so long, once the kids will start to play :-)

pillows and sleeping bags

Chapter 2: Getting ready for the first reclaims

Two weeks ago, we had to reclaim the gelcoat stress cracks in the inner laminate under the cabin ladder.

stress cracks on the bilge inspection hole

inspection hole (rectangle support frame between the hull and inner layer)

collapsed inner laminate layer on the top of the ladder

It turned out to be caused by the wrong placement of the boat on the trailer, resp. the keel rollers were in bad positions and were pushing the hull against the deck through the ladder. According to the factory 90% of the boat weight should rest on the keel area bellow the centerboard where the ballast is located.

the left roller should not be there !!!

The trailer was, however prepared by the dealer which was not aware of this weak point of the construction. The factory guys confirmed that they had the same issue in the past. Anyway, they went to the dealer and fixed the issue. The dealer modified the trailer by adding two more bunks and shortened the ladder by a few millimeters, but the crack on the top of the ladder appeared again ... oh well.
We then decided that he will rebuild the trailer completely so the keel area will be supported by two large bunks instead of the rollers. These bunks spreads the load much better now, but only time can tell.
So now we have to live with a few stress cracks in inner layer :(
 
I would highly recommend to ask for all mandatory documentation to the boat like the manual, the crane lifting area and the more importantly how to store the boat on the trailer properly !!!
Problem with Dalpol is that they do not provide any kind of the manual.

repair done by Mr. Linhart (not as good as the initial fix by the factory)

factory fixed only the cracks on flat surfaces and not in the non-skid

I was told that repairing the non-skid is not easy. Hmm, nothing new to me. I know that it can be fixed as you have a piece of the non-skid mold, but I can live with that. I will probably fix it by myself later on when I have a time, but now I'm focused on getting her ready. It's about the time.

factory added more layers of the fiberglass

I have also some very thin cracks on the sides of the floor in the same area, but this is not a big deal.
Don't forget that we have hull #27 so it's not perfect. On the other side, I have to admit that all were repaired pretty fast in 14 days.
This was also nice opportunity to drive a few hundreds of km and practice the behavior of the loaded trailer when I was moving the boat back and forth to the dealer.

When I was in the mood of modifying the trailer I've changed the front bow stop. Originally there was pretty bad carpet, which was stretching the bow. So I cut the pads with the carpet and replaced it with the V shaped thermoplastic bow stop which does not make any stains.

modified bow stop

Fiberglass thickness

When I've been doing all these upgrades, I've saved the remains from the drilling holes to the fiberglass. This is the final overview and its average thickness:

A. transom (plywood reinforced, fuel hose to the outboard motor) - 25mm
B. hull (thru-hull depth sounder) - 11mm
C. deck (cockpit, depth display) - 5mm
D. inner skin (depth display) - 3mm
E. cabin seating (inspection hole) - 4mm

Upgrades

We are quite busy now with other stuff, but I'm almost finished collecting the new technical and safety equipment for our boat.

One of the last thing is the fridge. We have not decided yet what to choose. This is a pretty small boat, so every free space is a good space, but a compressor fridge is a must. We will probably buy some portable around 20-25 liters and put into the middle cockpit hatch, but first I need to relocate the battery from this hatch to the starboard hatch.
The next thing is to install the fuel tank & hoses, solar panel, battery charger (solar, shore & outboard), battery monitor, depth and speed sounder and a few small accessories. As soon we will get the boat from the dealer's storage, I'm planning to document here all the major tasks.

Spring is getting fast and we can't wait for the first launch.

Boat name

The boat is on the trailer and stored in a dealer's garage until its officially registered.
Anyway, we decided to name her "SOLE MIO", which means "my sun" in Italian, but also contains the initials of our two children Simon and Lenka.

Since we had a Catalina 25, which was a great boat, there was a little time we wanted to name her Catalina. Then we had to change it to something else to distinguish her in the family talk.
Our previous boat was named by the first owner as "High Anxiety",  but as I don't rename the boats and its quite hard to pronounce it properly here, so we always called her Catalina anyway.

The boat naming ceremony will happen on the first launch so it will have to wait till the spring.

Finaly delivered!

Hurray! The boat is here.

Since the initial order it took a little over 3 months to build her, sometimes a little stressful to get everything in order, but this part of our dream has finished.
From the Craft Identification Number (CIN) it seems our hull is number 27.
The only problem was with my trailer. It turned out that the keel rollers are too low and the boat would hit the trailer fenders, so it needed some modification.
One last thing before the boat registration is to decide the boat name. Not final yet, but getting there.
Enjoy some photos of the final state.

mast transport "pillows"

younger daughter with her baby loves this boat :-)

boom with lazy-bag and main sail

genoa sail bag

head wall - spot for paddle and stuff

very nice wood work

Kitchen needs some cooktop, probably Origo A100.

Normally, under this shelve there is a flexible water tank. I think this is a good spot for a gas tank

battery locker

outboard motor bracked in the running possition

setting up my trailer