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When we purchased Darwin's Passage in the spring of 2000, we knew we had two issues that needed attention in the next five years: paint and teakdeck. When we arrived in Trinidad in August 2000, we found a place that could take on our painting project. We decided that this would be a good time to proceed with the work while Barry & I tied up loose ends from our soon to be "previous life".
CrewsInn Marina and Boatyard, located in Chagaramus, had a large indoor facility capable of accomodating DP (minus the mast). We decided at this point to replace the teak handles with stainless, and to do some front end and stern modifications. The bow had been causing us some grief with the inability to deploy two anchors, and we decided to change the 7' aluminum pole and davits in the stern with a stainless steel arch that would be integrated into the pushpit.
 Before new paintwork |
 After new paintwork |
The first task at hand was to dismantle our beautiful boat and strip her down for painting. The mast was unstepped and all of the rigging removed. She was stripped down to bare aluminum, re-faired, etched, epoxied, and coated with Awl-Grip. She was reassembled for Christmas 2000, but at this point we discovered a number of tasks that had not yet been completed. We returned January 2001 and at this point decided on the teak deck replacement and the bow and stern modifications. The teak work we had seen had been exceptional and the Carpentry Foreman, Alan Paul, has an exceptional talent. We contacted to have the arch built by Harry Stauble of Superior Machine Shop Engineering Works. We were very pleased with the final results. The bow modification turned out to be rather complicated and in the end we replaced the old Maxwell windlass with a Lighthouse horizontal unit. An extension arm was added to one of the two bow tracks to carry the primary anchor - we will see how well this works out...
 Transom with aluminum pole and davits |
 Transom with stainless steel arch integrated into pushpit |