The deck of 4614 has been taken off. The skellton of frames and beams is quite healthy. Only some of the beams, which have been optimised to save weight, suffered from the 40 years and will have to be replaced.

The chance will not come again too soon: The deck is off and we make use of this opportunity to remove the old weathered paint inside of the hull

As you may remember from the “Inspection” part of this page, the skeg porved to be quite rotten and a new one had to be carved with the old one as a model.

The first layer of paint for 4614 inside and careful cleaning after sanding for the second layer. The result is even better than we expected. We see an excellent colour and structure of the wooden planks inside.

It,s D-DAY (Decks’s Day)! After all the stripping, sanding, cleaning, painting, strengthening of the hull, the graet day has come: 4614 will get the new deck. Because of the size of the deck and the many surfaces to be covered with epoxy in a short time this means literally: ALL HANDS ON DECK!

Everybody busy applying the epoxy to deck’s surface and hull structure.

And within seconds the new plywood deck is placed and fixed to the hull.

The plywood deck will be covered by nicely finished teak planks.

Brain Storming and discussion

In parallel the cast iron keel gets a smooth surface and several epoxy coatings.

The final result after three spayed layers of VC17. It looks like a polished shiny solid block of cupper.

The base for the radial vang traveller is carved from a laminated teak wood circle and integrated into the teak plank structure of the new deck.

The first test to fix the refitted keel below the hull. The fit has to be plain and symmetrical to avoid load peaks in th ebottom of the hull and to make sure that the star is equally fast on both tracks.

The last high-tech fittings are mounted on the deck of 4614. Form follows function: the black carbon-fittings are in nice contrast to the traditional teak deck.

Keel, Skeg and Rudder have been fixed below the hull, which received another epoxi-coating below the waterline.