LUCIE left the Baltic Boat Works building and is on her way to Hinckley Shipyard, where she will be loaded onto the air-ride flatbed tomorrow before heading west to Vancouver, Canada for the 2017 Six Metre World Championships. From there, it is on to San Francisco for the St. Francis Yacht Club Fall Six Metre Regatta and Six Metre North American Championships.
Next month, LUCIE will take on the 6 Metre Worlds in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Here is the full update on how the team has been preparing the yacht for racing from Jens Lange:
“The aft end of the boom got stripped and re-varnished, and the slightly lighter wood where the old band was will blend in fairly fast once the boom sees some UV light again.
“The foredeck handrails are off the boat right now, as they took a beating from almost three months in the water and lots of training. We are doing some varnish work to them so that they look proper for the 6 Metre Worlds next month in Vancouver.
“The topside area just below the chain plates has received a spline on both port and starboard as the load of the standing rigging has pulled the planking a bit and the paint continues to crack there. This operation will not be visible again by the time LUCIE leaves the shop for Vancouver.
“As mentioned before, I have not only had the vang control stripped but also took off the mast fwd and aft controls. For the “mast fwd” we have replaced the whole line as this was a pieced-together system, and I did not like the fact that these were two lines. Upon inspection I also replaced the triple blocks this system runs on. They were very tired Lewmar blocks without ball bearings, which look like they were bought in 2012 in Sweden. We now have one continuous line running over new 57mm Harken triple blocks.
“And the new spin pole is making good progress, glued up to the eight-staved birds mouth pole. We’ve already rounded it, fit the clews and sanded it. This pole will get varnished over the next ten days and then rigged up.”
LUCIE was launched last week in Newport, R.I. and began her first training session of the season over the weekend. The team is preparing for the Newport MetreFest 2017, which will be run in conjunction with NYYC’s Annual Regatta from June 9-11, 2017.
Before hitting the water, the yacht underwent some final updates. Here is the full update from Jens Lange:
“LUCIE is ready for the 2017 season! Much needed TLC was provided to her, the full spa treatment…
“All her bright work received several coats of fresh varnish, all little dings and scratches from last year are gone now. The deck was due for fresh paint as well and it certainly helped that several pieces of hardware were off the boat for inspection and upgrades. One of the spinnaker poles received new rigging to improve handling and small hardware and rigging changes throughout the entire boat will make LUCIE even more competitive.
“The bottom received a fresh coat of paint and got polished; the topsides finally received the last coat of paint and are gleaming again.
“Quite some effort and engineering went into the design of the new lifting eyes for LUCIE’s single point lifting system. These eyes also function as keel bolts and are sometimes exposed to water in the bilge we eventually decided on custom machined pieces made from Aluminum Bronze – almost a shame that they can never be seen under the floorboards.”
Photos from the shipyard prior to launching:
