August, 2023 - Gennaker

Found a barely used Gennaker that'll fit our Etap nicely, for a good price on Marktplaats.nl. It came with 2x 20m of sheet, 3 blocks, a Gaastra launch bag and even a snuffer!

Now I'm actually hoping for a light wind day to start playing with my new sail!

July, 2023 - Forestay Snaps!

On July 15th, on route from the Marker Wadden back to my homeport, upwind, it was gusting hard. During one unfortunate tack, my forestay snapped! Thank god I still had the Gennaker halyard set tight, which now essentially held the mast from falling. I quickly removed the jib and (jury) rigged the genoa halyard as some kind of temporary forestay. As the winds were blowing and waves were building, the mast flew all over the place while I tried to calmly motor back to our home port. Remember that just a couple of months back I replaced ALL stays EXCEPT the forestay? Yeah -- I know

Anyway, I got back safely (what an adventure!) and it turned out that the forestay didn't quite break but actually came loose (no Loctite?) and ripped the lower part of the Furlex with it.

We had CS Rigging replace the 100S with a brand new Furlex 50S including a new forestay. They also trimmed the boat for us and we ended up paying a total of €1000 for the new furler and all the work. They were fully booked and we had to wait a bit, which wasn't an issue for us as we were heading to Mexico for the next three weeks.

May, 2023 - Lazy Bag

May, 2023 - Even though the boom is a little short of 3.30m on the Etap 21i and our sailmaker advised against it, we decided to go for a lazy bag instead of lazy jacks. The main reason being I often go for a sail after work for just one or two hours and well... I guess I'm lazy too ;)

One of our "marine neighbours" recommended Resen Sails. This company has an order process that essentially allows you to select your boat from a list and selecting the options you want. Very quick process and after emailing back and forth a bit about measurements (our mast circumvention was not at all what ResenSails expected, and had to send a picture to convince them our measurements were correct :) ), they made our lazy bag for €485 including taxes and shipping. We chose the same material and color (Sunbrella Plus Silver - SUNT2 5035 152) to match the Sprayhood we bought back in January.

The lazybag fits perfectly and makes hoisting the sail sooooo much nicer --- would recommend!

April, 2023 - Lewmar 16 Winches

Found an add on marktplaats.nl to good to be true: 2 Lewmar 16 Ocean self-tailing winches for next to nothing! Bought them and replaced the factory-fitted Lewmar 6 winches with these two.

March, 2023 - New Mainsail

March, 2023 - Both the mainsail and jib that were on Firefly when we bought her, are quite old. The mainsail truly ran out, was repaired several times and due for replacement. We order a new mainsail at Sail Select. The sail is cross-cut Dacron (254gr/6oz) and fully battened. Including all taxes we paid €1578.

We have been sailing with the new mainsail for a couple of months now and she sails so much better and faster; we're quite happy with it! The main advantages of a fully battened sail are that the sail behaves calmer in gusty conditions and remains in much better shape, easier to trim. The main disadvantage we notices is that raising the sail now requires winching for the top half. Also, hoisting the sail requires some pulling to get the sail down. We tried lubricating the track and grinding the cars slides a bit, but to no avail. All things considering, we would wholeheartedly recommend full-battened sails, however.

March, 2023, Standing Rigging

March, 2023 - We don't know how old our standing rigging was when we bought the boat. The previous owner thinks it may even be the original rigging, from 1999! Needless to say, replacement was long overdue. The winter storage facility our boat was at, offers rigging, so we went for convivence and had al our stays made there. Unfortunately, due to personnel shortage they weren't able to help us with our forestay (that's inside the Furlex 100S tubes), so we just got the upper & lower shrouws and a new backstay, including all turnbuckles, terminals etc. We paid €406 incl taxes.

Jan, 2023 - New Sprayhood

The sprayhood that came with our Etap when we bought her, has completely worn out. It was beyond repair. We did like the model and the built was very solid. We reached out to the original maker, Toussein in Belgium, and order a new one. Unfortunately, the original color (white) is no longer available. We went for "Silver" (SUNT2 5035 152). After Toussein finished our Sprayhood, we went to Belgium to pick it up and combined it with a nice weekend in Brugge; lovely! Total costs: €1597 (for the sprayhood, not the weekend!).

We tried to find a local sailmaker that would help us fitting the new Sprayhood. Unfortunately, NONE of the sailmakers are even remotely interested installing something they did not produce themselves, even when offered a hefty premium. Pfff....

TBC

Dec, 2022 - New Boat, New Name

After creating a couple of designs, "FireFly" won the vote!

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