Tom Simmat
New Member
My wife and I are the new owners, custodians of the 1975 Bruce King ketch Sophie Wackles a truely beautiful mahogany yacht. We found a thread on this forum May 11, 2011 with posts by Martin King. She was sailed to Australia about 2013 by the previous owners. We are undergoing an extensive but gentle refit and rebuild. There is a lot of old redundant electronics and other over specified stuff on board which we are taking out. We want to take her back to Bruce Kings' original concept a basic nice yacht. The mahogany hull is still very sound, and all the original joinery below is in excellent condition, but the cabin sides need replacing and also some minor ply bulkheads and deck areas including samson post.
We need to pull the masts out and replace the standing and running rigging. The original rigging plan seems to have been retained. There is a compression spa between 3/4 up the mizzen and the main mast back stay. To keep the mizzen stable fore and aft the back stay has to be bar taught, which I don't believe is good for the mahogany hull around the chain plates. We intend to replace this with fore and aft mizzen lowers.
Are any of the Ericson Boats ketch rigged and have a similar compression spar arrangement?
Does "Warm Rain" which I believe is a sister ship have this arrangement.
Any help would be appreciated
Tom
We need to pull the masts out and replace the standing and running rigging. The original rigging plan seems to have been retained. There is a compression spa between 3/4 up the mizzen and the main mast back stay. To keep the mizzen stable fore and aft the back stay has to be bar taught, which I don't believe is good for the mahogany hull around the chain plates. We intend to replace this with fore and aft mizzen lowers.
Are any of the Ericson Boats ketch rigged and have a similar compression spar arrangement?
Does "Warm Rain" which I believe is a sister ship have this arrangement.
Any help would be appreciated
Tom