Winter Upgrades

Trouper went into Nautor’s Hamble yard for a mini-refit in late October 2025. The main job was to remove the rig and renew the rather elderly rod rigging. There were a few jobs that it made sense otherwise do at the same time, such as replacing the radar, as it is only possible to re-run that cable with the rig out of the boat.

• Rod – this was all renewed, with new bottle screws. Unfortunately the rigging subcontractor got their sums a bit wrong and has made the rods that run from the lower spreaders to the deck and the lower diagonals too short. Currently there is an interim solution using some extra toggles at deck level in place, and they’ll be swapping in new sections in the spring.
• Compass – this has been a problem for some years. Id thought it just needed correcting. The Nautor guys arranged to swing the compass with a compass adjustor on board (much easier to arrange in Hamble, than Birdham). They identified that the problem was not the need for correction but rather that the bearing that the compass rose tuns on was sticking. Nautor managed to find a firm in Newcastle who appear to be the last people in the country able to rebuild compasses. I could have bought a new one, but ones as large as Trouper’s are no longer available, and critically the current one has the Swan logo on the compass rose. Happily the compass is now rebuilt – and for less than the cost of a new good quality one. Unfortunately the lamps were lost in the process, but Nautor are sorting out replacements for me.
• The wire checkstays were changed for Dyneema. I wanted this to reduce chafe on both the mainsail and the boom as the checkstays are often rubbing against them when under sail. We decided to replace the babystay and backstay with dyneema too. The backstay went on whilst with Nautor but the babystay will be added in the spring when they sortout the shroud length issues.
• After much deliberation I decided to replace the radar with the modern Furuno model. This had the great virtue of the same bolt fixing pattern as the old one, and they have a reputation for making stuff that works for ever. I’ll write a separate post on my experiences of using it. In the end I chose to use a computer software display solution for it rather than a dedicated display.
• Nautor also commissioned an electrician to inspect our Victorn Lithium battery and charging system that I’d installed as our insurer had asked for something. They’d said an email was fine – what we got back was a rather grander pdf covered in logos but I was a bit smug to read that they thought it was a good installation, to a high standard.

I’ve subsequently tackled a few more jobs.

• The Nautor guys pointed out that my halyards, especially the spinnaker ones, were really rather tatty. This was a big ticket item as I ended up replacing both spinaker halyards, one of the jib halyards, and one of the main halyards. I was able to buy a drum of 12mm dyneema cored rope and make up the halyards myself, which helped on the costs, though the rope itself was expensive.
• The lazy jacks were also looking a bit tatty after 7 years uses so I bought 100m of the Lyros lazy jack line and remade those, which was a fairly quick job, and replaced all the fender lines whilst I was at it as they are made of the same stuff and were a bit tatty.
• Last summer we’d added to the chafe damage on the mooring lines that had come with the boat. It was a good set of nice lines but they are probably 15 or more years old and with chafe damage usually in the middle we had fewer and fewer long ones and ever more short ones. I’d been eyeing up what to use for new ones and had settled on a lyros product that is designed to be especially stretchy which will help in windy or bumpy conditions. I used the halyard rope order as a chance to get a bit of a discount on 100m of that two, whcih I’ve cut down into 2x10m, 4x15m and 2x7m lines all with a decent sized eye splice at one end. I’ve used whippings on the unspliced end to indicate the length which should help finding the ones you want in the locker. We still have two 25m long shore lines in the locker too, so we’re very well proivded for now.
• Replacing the worn Max Prop. This turned into a bit of a saga so gets its own post.
• Patching the copper coat where some has come loose. That turned out to be a simpler job than I’d feared – as ever decent suface preparation and then following the instructions did the trick.
• Our 12 year old liferaft failed it’s 3 yearly inspection, as it no longer maintained it’s pressure over 24 hours. Wouldn’t have stopped it working if we’d needed it but it marked the end of it’s useful life. Suffolk Marine safety sorted out a suitable replacement for a reasonable price. I want a robust well specified one (if you ever need it you’d regret penny pinching) capable of taking six people, and it has to fit inot the storage cage on Trouper’s coachroof.