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The next thing I started to think about was the bottom. The boat would be finished by J-boats by November 20. I was planning to race at Key West Race Week in January. So I either had to get the boat completed before the regatta, or wait until after. I thought that if I was willing to spend the money it was worth trying to get the boat completed. Martin Kald recommended Waterline Systems to have the work done. I called them and talked to Randy about the boat. I explained that we wanted to leave the boat on a mooring for months on end. That we would clean the bottom on a regular schedule. Randy said that the boats out of the factory tend to be unfair and recommended that we have the Grand Pre bottom, with bottom paint. This consisted of fairing the whole bottom, Keel and Rudder. Adding an epoxy barrier coat to seal the bottom from moisture, and sanding that to a fair bottom. Then painting the bottom with Baltaplate, and sanding that to a fair bottom with up to 600 grit sandpaper. For me it was a hard personal choice to make. The Grand Pre bottom would run $5,500! Wow that's a lot of money. After looking at a few quotes from other company's that were able to do quality work, I decided that this cost was fair, and that Waterline was worth working with. I called Randy again and asked for a few extras. I asked if he could pick up the boat from J-boats, and if he could install the thru-hull for the speed transducer. He said he would do that and fax me the paper work. I signed a copy and mailed a deposit check right away. He agreed to do the bottom before Christmas, so that I would have time to work in the boat before Key West Race Week. Right after Christmas my father and I went to pick up the boat. When I first saw the boat I couldn't believe it. It was the best Baltaplate bottom I have ever seen. Not only I, but everyone else that saw the bottom was impressed. I am sure that this work added to our performance at Key West Race Week.

Now it was time to start rigging the boat and adding all the extra's we would need to make the boat easy to sail. One of the first thing I did when we picked up the boat was to take an inventory of the lines provided by J-boats. All the halyards we low stretch, high-teck type of lines. These would be fine for our use. The jib sheets were too big and heavy. The mainsheet was a little to short; this was caused because I added an additional purchase to the mainsheet (only for heavy air). The spinnaker sheets were not tapered and too stretchy. I changed them to 5/16" Yale Maxibrade with tapered tails and a snap shackle for easy attachment to the sail. Maxibrade is a spectra line with a very tuff cover. I like it because you can strip the cover off the ends and have a solid spectra line for the tail. This makes for very light tapered spinnaker sheets with a nice handle for the crew to hang on to . I also used Maxibrade for the tack line on the asymmetrical spinnaker. The sheets and tack line used Snap shackles because the have swivels in them. This helps in taking the raps out of a fouled spinnaker. I used Gibbs new small super snap for the shackles. I like them because they are light, small, and strong. After using them for a regatta I whished we used Tylaska T5. The reason is that the trigger in the T5 is protected better and has less of a chance of unintentional opening. We ended up taping the Gibb shackles to prevent unintentional openings. I took the spinnaker sheet provided by J-boats and made it the mainsheet, and took the mainsheet and made it the Jib sheet. In shore we down size the lines to make them small in size. This made the sheets easier to handle, and lighter. The excess line that we replaced became doc lines, which worked fine.

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