A few upgrades and maintenance

Since coming home from Summerside and Shediac, we have only managed a few day sails out into Cardigan Bay due to work commitments.


Between trips, we did a couple of upgrades to Obsession. First was to install a cabin fan. On hot days, it can get quite stuffy down below, especially when we are cooking on the stove, so we put in a 6 inch cabin fan to help move the air around.

Second, we upgraded the anchor chain and rode. Before, we had about 20 feet of chain and an additional 120 feet of anchor rode. Using a 7:1 scope, this only let us anchor in about 20 feet of water safely. With the new combination of 40 feet of chain and an additional 250 feet of anchor rode, we can now anchor in about 40 feet of water. This gives us much more flexibility, particularly in a location like the Bras D'Or lakes, where the bottom can drop off quite rapidly. We had encountered spots in our previous trips where, in order to get to a safe depth, we had to be uncomfortably close to shore. Now we have more options for overnight anchorages. While installing the anchor rode, we added a small piece of blue whipping every 10 feet to make it easier to determine how much scope we were letting out.

Third, we fixed the piece of vinyl that was sagging in the head. Beneteau boats in the age range of Obsession have a problem with the headliner. Much of the interior of the boat is covered in a white, vinyl headliner with a thin foam backing. This is attached to the interior of the hull of the boat. The problem is that the foam can deteriorate, and then the vinyl separates and falls down. This hasn't been much of a problem for us with Obsession, with one exception. Last year, when we installed the new depth sounder and wind meter, we had to remove part of the vinyl in the head to run some wires. Once we removed the vinyl, it refused to stay reattached, although we tried more than one glue. Finally, we tried a different solution. We cut three pine boards and shaped them to fit the corners of the head where we had removed the vinyl. With a stain and a few coats of varnish, they matched the rest of the trim in the interior. We screwed them on, trapping the edges of the vinyl underneath. Now, not only does it look much better, but by removing only a couple of screws, we can get easy access to the wires that run under the vinyl in the head area.