Winter 2008/9
Barda spent most of the winter on the mooring, only coming out for a quick bottom job. The International VC Offshore hadn't impressed so for this season we're trying the Blakes Hard Racing - it went on bright white which was good. We also did the bootline in a proper bootline paint to try and keep it clean. Great news was the keel which after last winters marathon refinishing remains virtually rust free. The checkstays looked tired so were replaced with new wire and a quick anode change was made before re-launching ready for the first race of the season.

Summer 2008
The runner winches were replaced midway through the 2008 season. Jason and I hunted arond the solent but couldn't find anything secondhand, so I bit the bullet and went for some new Harkens. Crikey this made a huge difference upwind now we can really crank on the pressure - second to the new sails this has been the best go-faster upgrade we've ever made.

A new dyneema main halyard got some weight out of the rig and we have a basket of new jammers and deck organisers to go on the boat when we have a dry and race-free weekend.

Winter 2007/8
Bottom blasted to remove multiple layers of soft anti fouling, boot lines replaced, hull polished and underwater areas filled with epoxy/microballons, sanded fair and painted with 3 coast of VC Tar.
Iron keel blasted to bare metal, treated with Ku-Rust and 2 coats of primocon. Then three layers of epoxy mixed with micro-balloons. Faired back by hand with long boards (this took over 18 hours!)
Final filling using quick-sand car filler, overcoated with 2 coats of neat epoxy rollered on. Final coat of Primocon as a barrier before anti fouling (VC Offshore with Teflon).
Rudder removed with upper clamp being rebuilt by Jason to replace siezed threads. Rudder came out as easier to fill/fair and there was blasting media in the bearings which needs to be cleaned out. Trailing edge of rudder extended by 5mm to give a thinner section biased edge (to hopefully get rid of the annoying vibrations experienced at 9.5knots).

Drive train was also overhauled with new parts. The old fashioned shaft seal which always leaked under power was removed and replaced with a Tides Marine series one self-aligning shaft seal which fitted perfectly and has yet to issue a single drip. The new upper plain rubber bearing had a lip at the outer end which needed to be trimmed down to fit, with locating holes drilled to accept new M10 Nylon locating screws.

• Cutlass bearing - Aqualube Bearing 25 x 1 ½" x 100 AMI-B25 Brass.
• Upper shaft bearing - All Rubber CH25 x 36 100mm.
• Gori folding propeller 15" x 10" (Right handed).
• SeriesOne Self Aligning Shaft Seal part number ONE-25M-45M-M.

The new Gori propellor is slightly larger than the original Darglow 14" x 11" and has delivered both an extra knot under power (now 7.5 knts max with 6.8 knts comfortable cruise) and much improved performance astern with very little kick.

A huge improvement came from correctly aligning the engine to the shaft. The engine was around 8mm out of alignment and now runs much smoother with virtually no vibration being felt.

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