The Ballad Exchange

Hi all - I've been reading up on this mast step / truss issue. It was something I was concerned with and a little suspect of when buying the boat recently (1973, #64 I believe). But she was a great deal and I really love the boat :) All signs point to this needing to be done this winter. There was ...

Hi Krystin. That translucent hatch style was fashionable in the 70s. It's basically just standard chopper gun polyester layup with the gel coat left off the central part. Hence the nicotine yellow color, and also a certain amount of crispiness due to UV getting at the resins. Ours was painted over a...

Hi Tom. To confirm, Yachting Monthly 's review puts the Ballad's UK 'standard price' at £6570 (afloat Harwich), with a YM 'Index price' of £7203. That was in 1973, so that would represent +/- £61000 in today's money according to: http://www.moneysorter.co.uk/calculator_inflation2.html#calculator Che...

Do you fly your nylon drifter on its own luff? I'm trying to decide if a 2:1 halyard is needed; might forego all that extra hardware & line aloft & use a 2:1 or 3:1 tack strop instead? I just love how small & light a nylon light air sail packs down, & how well it stands up in a swell...

How was tacking & gybing the big sail? Is your working genoa a 135% or so? That's where we are leaning, a 135% to 138% on a furler (reefable to 100%). Then a nylon (?) 'drifter' or Code Zero of about 145% tacked to the anchor platform, probably on a removable furler. That's for winds up to 9-10k...

Yay! Sounds like you had one of those intermittent vacuum leaks that only shows up when the system is pulling hard negative pressure. Always a tough problem to track down, with any vehicle.

Understand those realities. We spent yesterday pulling 7 - 8000lbs of batteries out of the basement & lowering 3000# pounds down into it. A blow to both the time & discretionary budgets.

Did moving the fuel pump work for you, Peter?

The "missing" length on your boat matches where my closed locker sits between the aft lower chainplate bulkhead and the main bulkhead. I wonder what the aft lower chainplate would be attached to if this mini bulkhead was missing? Hmm. On our Ballad, the distance between the main bulkhead ...

Is too small? Pilot berth runs bulkhead to bulkhead, which on port side is something like 6'4" (193cm). Stbd side span is an inch or two shorter, IIRC, probably to fit the galley. Unless someone has added a half bulkhead coincident with the aft chainplate -- a common repair, and a standard item...