Fitting all the modern cruising conveniences on the back of a small classic boat presented some challenges.  Boom support, solar panels, and cockpit covering was a must for us.  We could not use a ridged vang because our dinghy will be stored under the boom, so boom gallows fit the bill, and the look of the boat.  A solar arch built in the same style as the boom gallows seemed to tie everything together.  the two structures together provide a way to install a sun shade without having all the bimini hardware.

The factory bowsprit came with two anchor rollers. The starboard is a nice cast bronze roller, but the port was a hard rubber roller that was buried into the teak. Although there where two rollers on a fairly wide bowsprit there was not quite enough room to use both rollers. The goals of this project were to upgrade the anchor roller on the port side and add a windlass.

John, at the Attainable Adventure Cruising website, makes a good argument for having only one anchor on the bow. He also has a good article about anchor roller design. What he describes makes a lot of sense to me. In short he suggest two bow rollers set apart fore and aft, as well as side to side. If the anchor is stowed in the aft most roller the other roller is free to pull a line up from a mooring while keeping it clear of the primary anchor.

I was able to rework the factory bowsprit to accomplish this by having the anchor come up through it. Our new anchor is a 44 lbs Spade.

I really enjoy our cutter rig but on occasion it was hard to pull the yankee through the slot between the forestay and the jibstay. Our new sail is more of a genoa than a yankee and a much heavier cloth. For ease of tacking and to minimize wear and tear on the sail I wanted to make the forestay removable.

I went with Dyneema because I felt it would be easier to handle. To get the stay out of the way I made a simple ring that fastened to the forward shroud. One wrap around the ring uses up the extra length and allows me to use the toggle to pull everything taught.

I love my Cape Dory, but like all boats it is not without its problems. Like many other the deck of our boat has a good bit of crazing. We had our boat inside a friends warehouse to paint the hull in 2014. At that time our plan was to leave the decks alone but seeing all the spray gear was still in the building we decided to go ahead with the decks. We prepped and painted the smooth areas inside and saved the nonskid areas for after we launched.

We loosely followed Don Casey’s suggestion for repairing crazing. The deck was cleaned, sanded (we only lightly sanded), masked, and then primed with an epoxy primer. We used Kiwi Grip for the actual nonskid. When I look closely I can still see some of the crazing, maybe 20% of what was there originally. I am unsure if they have opened up with time or never filled. Larger cracks in the gelcoat were sanded or ground out and filled back in with fairing compound, then primed and paint.

It was a real struggle for me to decide what electronic instruments I was going to install on the boat and where to mount them. I contacted Kim at Winsor Consulting, a marine electronic consultant and installer for some advice. He recommended installing two multi-function displays at the front of the cockpit instead of at the helm station. This way the can be seen by any one from anywhere in the cockpit.

I really liked the idea but had to decide where to mount them. I like to lean against the cabin beside the main companion way so I didn’t want them there. Over the hatch was the best choice .

We went a couple years without a cover on our wheel after the leather that was on it when we bought the boat finally fell apart. The bare stainless steel was cold and slippery when wet. I couldn’t bring myself to spend the money for a new leather wrap. After reading an article in “Good Old Boat” about using twine to cover the wheel I thought we would give it a try. After researching for a little while we decided to go a little more traditional than what was used in the article that inspired us.

It is all done in #27 cotton twine, except the Turk’s Head at the king spoke which is uses #45, and finished with several coats of varnish.

We built a Spindrift 10N, a 10 foot long nesting dinghy, for our tender.

I wanted to be able to store the dinghy on deck as well as be able to set it up and launch it single handed. What follows is our prototype setup which worked quite well.

Like many people we find butterfly hatches beautiful. We also felt that it would fit the style of our boat.

Knowing they have a reputation for being leaky, weak, and high maintenance why would we chose to use one? The deciding factor was our nesting dinghy. The foredeck and mast support of the dinghy, when stowed on deck, prevented the original hatch from opening at all. We went through a lot of work to move the new hatch back and could have done the same with the old hatch but the dagger board trunk still prevented it from opening very far. With the butterfly hatch the sides open to either side of the dagger board trunk allowing for better ventilation when the dinghy is on deck. Plus, they are pretty.

Clearly we didn’t do anything about being high maintenance, but we did our best to address the strength and leaking. We didn’t take any pictures of the glass. The windows are 3/8 glass, both tempered and laminated.