Following on from our last post, the work on ‘Siva’ continued this year with further extensions to the job list. Although the new electronic engine controls were operational and did the job for the owners over their Christmas holidays in Port Stephens, there was some fine tuning to be done. One of the new jobs on the list was four new Solbian solar panels fitted to the cabintop alongside the existing two unisolar panels. Combined with the two panels fitted on the davits, the solar input is impressive. The Solbian panels are classified as ‘semi flexible’ and there was concern that they may not be flexible enough to lay on the cabintop without distortion, however they took the curved surface without issues. The bottom wiring leaves a clean uninterrupted surface when fitted. The owner also wanted a gas line run to the Port side of the cockpit for the new BBQ location. This brought to light some inadequacies with the gas installation and further unplanned work with a total upgrade of the gas locker, lines and valves. The BBQ itself needed to be mounted with custom brackets etc.
The owners also had trouble with the existing anchor windlass which was replaced with a new Muir winch. This involved remodelling the winch base and some wiring upgrades. Also needing attention were the daggerboard control lines which continually jammed.
Another job that needed finishing was the additional water tanks in the saloon. To simplify this work flexible bladder tanks were used and plumbed into the existing system adding an extra 150 litres of capacity. One thing that the owners noticed when using the boat over Christmas was that the new position of the engine controls was too exposed and at risk of damage. So ‘re-work’ of the ‘re-work’ commenced with a custom matching composite bracket/shelf to re-mount the control levers further inboard and away from the side deck. For some reason the main head and ensuite had missing floor boards so these were made to match the original mounts. Also the ensuite never had a door so one was made and fitted along with the manual toilet getting an upgrade to electric. The ensuite had a small clothes washing machine mounted on the bulkhead however the wiring and plumbing were not hidden so another job was to re-route all services out of sight.
There were a myriad of other jobs that were done including things like re-clearing the carbon fibre wheels, hull pin stripes and polished ‘Spirited 380’ badges to finish her off.