Wonderful and so livable. Could you share your vendors and a brief critique of who’s good and who’s not so much on the folks who did the work?
First, helpful to know that south of San Diego, there is exactly one yard for the entire 800 nm peninsula until Cabo San Lucas, and for most people, really not until you round the cape with to La Paz, an additional 200 nms.
The one yard is
Baja Naval in Ensenada, 75 nms south of the US/MX border.
I did not use them because I did not have a good experience with them and I cannot recommend Baja Naval. They've been around since the 1980s and have a reputation for quality work at fair prices - but they also have a smattering of reviews stating bait/switch - that they bid work at just below SoCal yard rates, which was certainly my experience. I fully understand the paint work was difficult to bid from pictures (it more than doubled). But there were a couple new-build items such as the hardtop that more than doubled too. Their explanation was "oops- sorry, we were wrong." Their explanation for the doubling of cost to repaint was "turns out all the gelcoat must be removed - all of it!" I talked to two marine coatings' technical teams who did not support that statement. Not even close. I can't say whether they just didn't want the work, or if they thought I was a captive audience now that I had come 500 nms from San Francisco. But they were nice people, but no way would I do business with them.
So who did I use? I'm a bit coy about that. Through another forum of Mexico sailor/cruisers, I found a small group of workers who were ex-Baja Naval doing work. I will be selective in my recommendation for them. I will say they have been very honest with me which is, by far, the highest priority for doing work at a distance. Their fiberglass and paint work is excellent and very reasonable. The entire boat was prepped including all those holes in the flybridge; and many dozen more; and the caprails encapsulated in fiberglass for about $25k (Baja Naval originally gave me an estimate of $25k, then it more than doubled when I arrived - too be fair, even with over 100 pictures, the extent of the work could not be fully appreciated, though the 'all gelcoat must be removed' was not a supportable statement and explanation).
Hippo, you've had at least one boat built. TwistedTree is on his second Nordhavn, and there are a couple more serial-new-boat folks on this forum. I tip my hat to you guys (especially TT as his Nordhavn is truly massive). The amount of decisions and details that go into a new build is daunting - unless you've been through it, there's no explaining the amount of time, focus, and detail is needed.
Without diminishing the new-build challenge, doing it with a young group at a distance was a near-daily challenge of sketches (several hundred of them) and snap decisions. I have exchanged 1000s of pictures with the good folks I've worked with yet when I scan trying to find good examples to show folks such as those attached to this thread, they are a needle in a haystack of super-detail pictures of close-up pictures that are meaningless to anyone but them and me.
Doing a major refit (I'm calling it a "Resto-Mod," a term I picked-up watching Velocity Channel) is a PhD in boat ownership. Set aside the time and money - if a person does not have the base knowledge of systems, some decent mechanical aptitude, and resourcefulness to actually find stuff, this will be a disaster unless you use one of a very small handful of yards in the world. And they will come at a princely sum, and rightfully so - they are truly master craftsmen who would be unwilling to do things anyway except the one they know to be right.
A long intro to say that I cannot in good conscious recommend what I did, even if you're okay with the expense. As a young pup, I worked my way through college as a draftsman, then a technical illustrator, and much of my current work is paralegal-technical writing (hard to believe given the number of typos in my posts, to which I blame Android). I believe I have above average technical communication skills. They were stretched to the limit.
I could go on and on. But suffice to say, I am happy with the outcome, I am proud to breath new life into a 50-year old boat, and I cannot wait to get her dirty all over again from tons of use. The only explanation my wife accepts is "Cheryll, I know this was a stupid expense. I can afford to do this once in my life - just once. We've owned the boat for 22+ years. There is no prize for dying the richest person in the graveyard." She's okay with that.
Peter
