After months of research looking for shipyards in Central America, we found our way to Astilleros Marecsa in Mazatlán Mexico. Neptun arrived on New Year’s Day and celebrated new year’s together in Mazatlán before the previous voyage ended and the crew signed off the ship.
Not all crew members left Mazatlán since a few stayed behind to help with the first period of the refit.
The goal with the refit
We went into shipyard partially to do regular maintenance on the vessel, but also to undertake a conversion from a staysail schooner to the mighty brigantine rig. The advantages of the brigantine rig are that it is very useful in the Tradewinds sailing with the wind, where a schooner does its job best on a beam reach, forward of the beam or abaft of the beam. But not only is it for practical reasons that this refit is taking place, but it is also to expand the everyday life with more fun going aloft and working with traditional sails and rigging.
#1 New rig
The rigging was quickly removed after the ship was drydocked on the 2. of January. The crew worked hard these days to empty the vessel before the docking and after the docking so that work could start as planned. The new rigging for NEPTUN was made in Marstal last summer and has an ETA in a 40′ container to Mazatlán about 1. February.
#2 Additional keel
To improve our sailing ability an additional keel will be attached to the existing keel.
This keel will reduce leeway when sailing under sail and improving our stability.
#3 Re-ballasting
To improve the stability to compensate for the new and heavier rig we are removing the old ballast that was laid under the salon many years ago. The top layer turned out to be fine quality concrete, but below the first 15 cm of concrete the surprise of a soil-alike ballast was found…
When the “ballast” has been removed we will ballast the vessel with steel which will lower the center of gravity by multiple centimetres.
#4 Yards, blocks and various tasks
As a result of the refit, we need to fabricate much new hardware including yards (horizontal wooden spars that the square sails set on), blocks and much more.
Here our great team is in the process of making blocks to handle all the new rope that will control our sails and rigging.
What is next? (Spoiler: Pacific Voyage 2025!)
When the refit is done, we plan on setting sail across the Pacific Ocean – a true adventure of a lifetime.
The crew for whole 2025 is already set and ready to take on this great adventure. We do still have available spots for our Pacific Voyage in 2026 if anyone out there would be interested?
