The Ballad Exchange

Hi Marius. The worst places for water intrusion on our 1972 Ballad were: mast partners, aft of foredeck cleat, chainplate eyebolts, and genoa tracks. The eyebolts had putty/bog solid cores, but they were often poorly located & the drill missed them. The mast partners had no real protection at al...

Hi Ted. We have vague plans for a similar mainsail increase, and many many IOR-era boats have been modified this way with good resilts. As your drawings show, adding foot & leach to the main does not really upset the sail balance at all if combined with a smaller genoa; so much of the 150% G1 is...

Heavy machinery is definitely an option. My various friends have diggers and forklifts and tractors, but none tall enuf to clear the boat's structure. I could rent, but our town's rental company is a notorious, over-charging monopolist, plus I live 15 miles out of town so the delivery is expensive a...

Hi Mark. Thanks for the link. We're creeping along on the refit: have most of the structural done, the forepeak area completed, new foredeck hatch, etc. I want to get the engine out before starting cosmetic on the main saloon. Still torn on the engine, which is why I've waited so long to address the...

Any clever ideas for hoisting the MD6A off its mounts & up through the companionway, then over the starboard side & 3m to the ground -- with the boat on stands & the mast down? I've decided to pull the engine completely & probably either have it rebuilt or replace it with a remanufac...

I'd be a bit worried by the loss of support. Those metal trusses are annoying and somewhat bodged together, a result of Rolf locating the forward lower shroud exactly halfway between two bulkheads. But they have that triangular depth profile for a reason: they need to transfer upwards pull on a 0.6m...

All the inner sails on the Ballad were originally intended to be set flying -- which suggests they didn't expect them to be used much! Our 'solent' will actually attach to the same halfway deck eye as the storm jib, so not quite a true solent, more of a masthead staysail. That moves the G3's center ...

Ballad step support.jpg Picture attached I hope of the step support. Mike That's just wood being wood, failing along the grain. Probably made worse by moisture cycling & the way that ledger cantilevers to support both the chart table & the tool tray lid. It is being stressed over a vertical...

Oh neat! We intend to something much like that, Though I am leaning more & more toward a folding double pad eye rather than the Wichard U-bolt I bought for this. I've already replaced a large section of the deck core in that area in preparation. The turnbuckle solution is good, but I'm also thin...

If you wish to build in a forepeak tank, you will face a number of challenges. Free surface effect, potential for osmotic blistering, isolating your water from the very nasty factory resin, etc. Also, the anchor locker sorta drains beneath the existing tank, so you'd need to provide some alternate p...