It’s been almost a year to date since we embarked upon the rollercoaster ride of refitting our beloved Catamaran, November Rain. It’s a major refit, hopefully worthy of a National boating magazine write-up and one that should keep us cruising comfortably the South Pacific for the next ten years or so. At the moment, we are back on the hard, after a brief but lovely couple of weeks, cruising and fishing New Zealand’s North Island. A few more minor tweaks and she’ll be right….in fact, perfect!
To recap the changes, it’s probably easier to say what we didn’t change… that list is short, we have retained the blue-diamond non-skid deck forward of the cockpit and the exterior paint on the hulls still have their odd stippled effect in the original cream paint.
What is new? .. We have spanking new Yanmar 370 HP engines (upsized from 240 HP), new gear boxes, new exhausts, increased propeller size, bulbous bows, a dedicated fishing platform at the rear, extended the flybridge by 2.4 meters, added an upstairs salon, washing machine, 2 additional refrigeration systems, tuna tower with steering and electronics, fuel tank inspection ports, new windows and hatches, new paint and completely remodeled the interior, including moving load bearing walls. We also added sloping false bottoms in the hulls to facilitate draining of bilge water toward the pump. Sleeping accommodation has been increased from 5 berths to 7, with an additional 4 day beds. The flybridge extension creates a shaded cockpit deck, which provides for comfortable outside dining area, protected from the wind with moveable shade. I could go on and on about how happy we are..
The current tweaks, which are now underway include adding additional displacement flotation along the rear sides, and “duck board extensions”, effectively lengthening the water line, all done to compensate for an unexpected weight imbalance, partly due to the additional ton of weight added by the previous modifications, compounded by the increased floatation forward from the bulbous bows. We were dragging our ass around, nose a bit too high. Our trim needed some minor adjustment.
It’s a race against time this week, as we have 6 mates who have already scheduled their holidays for annual fishing trip aboard November Rain. These guys all gave up a couple of weekends during the refit to sand, and paint and do some real work on the boat and we would hate to disappoint them. The guys at Harkin are working overtime to get the done by Friday.
Before the makeover.. November Rain in Vanuatu
For comparison I add some before photos next to after photos.
It was an amazing journey, working with Brian and Jared at Harking Boatbuilding over the past year. The video explains it all.
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