A note from Joe:
“Hello Friends: the article below is the third in a series of articles about my preparation of my Class 40 GryphonSolo2 for the Globe40 round-the-world race, which starts in June 2021 and finishes in March 2022. Hope you enjoy it.
Also, as an update to the work of the CCA’s Environment of the Sea Committee, we have become quite involved with the plight of the North Atlantic Right Whale, which is nearing extinction due to frequent entanglements with lobster trap lines. We have become advocates of work being done by Dr. Mark Baumgartner of WHOI, who is pioneering the R+D effort into “Ropeless Fishing”, which would eliminate the vertical rope in the water. For more info on this concept, check out this link [gear-fund.org ] and please consider making a contribution to the Gear Location Marking Fund.
In my first report in July, I was interviewed by Sailing World’s Dave Reed about how I decided to sail around the world again. In the second, ”Countdown to a Second Circumnavigation,” I described our last training sail of the year, on a balmy day in September in Portland, Maine.
But before proceeding to article 3, a quick note: There were three photos in the last report taken by noted marine photographer Billy Black that were not given proper credit initially. This was an oversight on my part and I feel awful about it since Billy has been a huge supporter of US offshore short-handed sailing going back to the 1980s days of the AroundAlone Race. Billy and his wife and business partner Joyce have chronicled every major ‘round-the-world race as well as being huge supporters of the Atlantic Cup Race, which is America’s premier Class 40 event. So thank you Billy and Joyce for your years of support; we all appreciate it very much.
GryphonSolo2 had her mast removed and came out of the water in early October at Maine Yacht Center in Portland. She had her keel and rudders removed, was rolled into the paint shop and then blocked about 4 feet off the ground. The plan was to have the non-skid deck paint re-done and to sand and repaint the bottom. However, as the boat is coming up on 10 years old and has been around the world once, we did a complete inspection, sounding, and survey of the hull and deck.
Our inspection uncovered several areas of delamination where the core material (balsa or foam) had separated from the inner and/or outer skin of fiberglass. When this separation occurs, the structural integrity of the hull or deck is compromised and must be fixed, or the problem will only get worse. The composites team at MYC is top-notch, and they have seen and repaired this type of delamination problem in race boats many times before, so they set to work and moved quickly through the stages of the repairs.
The photos (all courtesy of the MYC team) tell the story :
On the deck, we removed all hardware (winches, jammers, padeyes, etc.), sanded the deck back to the primer and repaired all damaged areas.
All non-skid areas were taped off and the painting began with two coats of primer, sanding in- between, then three coats of non-skid.
You can see from the photo that the foredeck area had to be done in “International Orange” with the hull number 106 so that if the boat was in distress, it could be seen and identified by a plane or helicopter.
The finished product looks like a new boat, and the sticky non-skid deck surface will provide secure footing for my co-skippers and me when offshore, even when wet.
Below the waterline, we found a significant area of delamination on the starboard side forward, which was quite large and troubling. The damaged area had to be repaired by first removing the outer layer of glass and removing the balsa core.
The next step was fitting and gluing in new balsa core with epoxy.
Next was applying multiple layers of fiberglass, vacuum-bagged, in faired layers back into the hull.
It sounds easy, but it takes an experienced composite specialist to make this repair, and Steve Tillotson and Will Rook at MYC fit that description. The repairs were done sequentially in about four days, and the hull under the waterline of the boat should now be as good as new.
Here is the boat, ready to roll out of the paint shop.
In the meantime, MYC has also been working on the keel so it’s ready to re-install, but that will be the subject of the next article. The rudders are also getting an overhaul and all of the deck hardware that was pulled off has to be carefully re-installed. That is what Rob Windsor and I will be focused on post-Thanksgiving through Christmas.
For now, I feel grateful that we were able to identify and repair some major structural problems that would undoubtedly have shown themselves at some point over our upcoming 30,000-nm circumnavigation.
I have also been in frequent touch with Globe40 race Director Manfred Ramspacher, who is working hard through these difficult pandemic times to keep the race on track with all the competitors and stopover ports around the world.
Happy holidays to all-
Hope you are all following the Vendee globe www.vendeeglobe.com Round the World Race Race.
Onward and upward,
Joe
Joe Harris sailed solo around the world in 2015-2016 and is now preparing for the 2021 Globe40, a doublehanded race around the world in Class 40s. The race is scheduled to start in Tangier, Morocco in June 2021 and make seven stops before finishing in Lisbon in March 2022. Joe is a member of the Cruising Club of America and chair of its Environment of the Sea Committee.
