Refitting a Contest 43
PBO reader Nitzan Sneh tells Ali Wood about upgrading his cruising yacht in busy St Lucia
DIY upgrades to improve a tired bluewater cruiser
Irecently read A Year in Provence. It was a fantastic book – very humorous and a great depiction of what it’s like to buy an old house in a foreign country and use the local trades to do the work. I found there to be a lot of similarities between that and my experience here in St Lucia, where I’ve spent the past few months working on my Contest 43.
GDY Kids is my eighth boat. I own a Farr 40 racing boat, too, but this is the one I use for cruising with my family.
I’m originally from Israel but I live in Boston and have been an American for the last 40 years. I’ve been buying and
renovating boats since I was 14; some stayed with me for a couple of months, others for seven years.
But as I kept going up in size, I realised I wanted to keep on the 40-footer level. I can control this size boat really well, single-handed if necessary.
Here are a few of the things I’ve been working on...
Bimini
The original bimini was the same height as the dodger (sprayhood) and was very low. You couldn’t comfortably walk around the cockpit and could only sail while you were sitting or by removing the bimini. I didn’t want to remove it so rebuilt it. I built the stainless steel frame myself and hired a local sailmaker to make the canvas parts. Now it’s fully enclosed so I can sail in any weather, which is especially important when I sail north-east back home.
Radar arch
I found a very nice metal fabrication shop owned by Malay people, and they were great. I designed the radar arch and they built this for me. The cables are out at the moment because the electronics are due to be installed. The new radar, antennas, forward and backward lighting and cameras will be installed here. The solar panels need new mounts, but that’s something I need to do a bit later on.
Bathing platform extension
When I previously tried to pull up the dinghy it would get caught on the bathing platform so I installed a pair of 2in stainless steel diagonal pipes on either side of the bottom. Now, when I hoist the dinghy it slides up nicely, and when you’re swimming it’s much easier to get in and out of the water when you have a railing to grab on to.
MOB sling bags
I ordered the sling bags from an artist here who makes bags and sailbags. I had the slings but I didn’t have the right bags. I designed the bags and shapes and
she made them perfectly out of the most expensive sail material you can get. The artist is amazing – she’s also been sketching my boat.
Nav station
Down below, everything is messy! You should see my home and my other boats – they’re meticulous – but this is work in progress. The instrumentation still works but it’s not ideal so I’m going to upgrade everything to B&G and Raymarine. On deck, I will only have 13in screens on iPad Pro, which communicate wirelessly with the Raymarine Axiom multifunction display (MFD) inside. All the comms, emails, messaging, movies and music can still be operated on deck via a main panel I can watch from the helm. Right now I’m building a network for NMEA 2000 plus wifi networks so everything will speak with each other and will be displayed onboard.
Electrics
My first project was to have USB ports all over the boat because family and friends always need them and I didn’t want them to be stuck in one place. I’ve installed about 25 altogether, near each bed, in the living area, galley and nav station.
I also put 12V sockets everywhere so any device that needs this can be plugged in. The plugs are standard ones. It hasn’t cost much – maybe $150-$200 – using items I’ve bought on Amazon.
I also installed a new 10W 12V cockpit floodlight. It’s low energy but illuminates everything perfectly. It has a proximity sensor so when I get closer to the boat it turns on, and switches off 30 seconds after I leave.
Lightbulb moment
New boats usually have a single switch for lights, but old ones like mine have lights that operate individually – in my case 13 lights and I have to go round switching them on one-by-one. For lazy people like me that’s no good! They were 20W halogen bulbs before, but now they’re 3W LEDs. They’re much nicer and all are now connected by a single on/off switch. It works really well. It’s the small things like this that really change your life!
Teak adventure
I needed some teak wood for some trims and frames, but importing this to St Lucia would be very expensive and take about three months to arrive. However, I discovered they grow teak here in St Lucia, up in the mountains. There’s a woman who owns a sawmill. She cuts down trees for the government and makes them into 1in planks of wood. But where would I find her, I asked – there are no addresses in the rural parts of the island.
“Oh, you go down to the river, you find the next bridge, you turn right...”
It was a long story, but I followed the instructions and after an hour and a half I found her waiting for me with her family on the road. She was 6ft tall and stocky and was in her 70s, but chopped and carried the wood herself.
She took me to a warehouse full of teak and told me to pick what I wanted.
“How much does it cost?” I asked, knowing that teak is expensive.
“Oh, $25EC” (Eastern Caribbean dollars). That’s about US$9! I bought five pieces. Afterwards she invited me back to her home for dinner with the family. It was a really incredible experience.
‘The instrumentation still works but is not ideal so I’m going to upgrade everything’
I then found a fantastic local carpenter who cut everything into the right shapes for me. It cost about US$70 altogether, so now I can re-do my dodger.
Fender step
A very quick and easy project was making my step. I fixed two 5in fenders together using the lines that came with them and two pieces of 1⁄2in poly tubes in between. It took ten minutes, attaches to the stanchions, and now I have a much better step up to my boat at a fraction of the cost of one you’d buy in a chandlery.
Combating cockroaches
When I bought GDY Kids, a lot of food had been left on board and it was infested with cockroaches. They’re very common here but I hate them, so I had to do something serious! I sprayed various products, but nothing happened.
I found that poison traps work well – the sort you might use for ants at home. You apply a drop from a syringe in key places and they take it back to their families and are eradicated.
But once you’ve got rid of them, how do you stop them coming back?
The solution is an ultrasonic pest repellent. Cockroaches, ants and mice really hate it. A $20 box of five is more than enough. Just one will cover a 40ft boat. It’s just technology – no chemicals – that’s why I like it.