OCEAN READY

IS A REFIT EVER REALLY FINISHED? OCEAN SAILING INSTRUCTOR LEON SCHULZ ON HOW TO KEEP AN OLDER YACHT READY FOR ADVENTURE

- Richard Langdon

In 2012 I bought a neglected 15-year-old Hallberg-Rassy 46 which had stood ashore unsold for many years. She was strong, but had been somewhat abandoned - sails still furled, and an interior that seemed as if the owners had just walked away. Even cooking spices were left in the cupboard. The teak deck looked terrible, having been loved to death by highpressure jet washing and scrubbing. The boat appeared unsellable, whereas I saw a potential for a refit.

Around that time many very able shipwrights and boat technicians had been made redundant. Once the 46 was bought, it was trucked to Sweden for a complete refit just adjacent to Hallberg-Rassy in Ellös. Here, a loose ‘yard’ was formed by many individual one-man companies, each run by laid-off boatbuilders and marine specialists. My Hallberg-Rassy 46, Regina Laska, would become just the first of many boats to undergo a flourishing wave of refits by these skilled tradesmen.

Eventually this collective developed into Adams Boat Care AB. Soon, the yard had a worldwide reputation and yachts sailed from all over Europe, the USA, and even New Zealand to get refitted by specialists there. At one stage no fewer than six HR46s were being refitted simultaneously, repeating the process of what we had done to my Regina Laska.

My Hallberg-Rassy has since been used extensively for six months each year, providing RYA sail training from April to October and sailing 5,000 miles annually. The yacht is looking as good as ever, now entering our 13th sailing season after the initial major refit. The process has never truly come to a halt, however, instead continuing each winter with a thorough boat 'spa treatment.

REFIT V NEW