Scroll to the bottom to see many more pictures.

First some data:

LoD 10,45 (32,8ft) (Length on deck)

LWL  9,85 (29,5 ft) (Length water line)

Beam 2,98 (9,8 ft)

Displacement: ~3500 kg (7700lbs)

Ballast: iron keel, ~1200 kg

Draft: 1,85

Calculated hull speed: 7.3 knots (theoretical value, its no big deal to sail 10 knots without realy planning)

Displ/LWL 132 (This puts the boat in the racing category but not extreemly fast)

Sail Area/Displ: 24 (this indicated fairly good light wind performance)

IG (høyde fortriangel): 11,3

J (base fortriangel): 3,95

ISP (høyde spinnakerfall): 11,3

P (begrensning for mastelik): 12,25

E (begrensning for bomlik): 4,25

SWPL (spinnakerbom/spristake): 3,95

Rating LYS: 1,25 (Norwegian rating system. New rating system will be introduced in 2013)

Sail area in square meters:

Mainsail: 31,8

Genua 1:  33,4

Genua 2: 30,5

Genua 4: 21,1

Spinnakker: 82

Other info

Rig: approx 5/6 rig with aft spread spreaders and running backstays and checkstays 

Propulsion: Engine Yanmar 2GM20 18hp, 2-blade folding propeller

Living: 6 berths in double for and aft cabin and two berths main cabin (one full length and one short), Separate toilet room (custom-made), head-room: approx 165cm, small galley with one ethanol burner. 

I don't know much of the history of the boat but i think the owner before the seller was bringing her to Norway from Scotland. There it had the name "Highlander". It's GB past is evident in the electrical system for shore power, with clumsy contacts. Also i think much of the customizing of the interiour was done by these owners. The old spinakker has a Scotish highlander cartoonlike figure on it. I will try to research a bit more of the history.

The boat was partly restored when i took it over.

A complete stripping and rebuilding of the underwater hull was just done.

The running rigging, backstay, running backstays and checkstays were new.

New spinlocks and some blocks.

New complete instrumentation (Nexus) wind, gps, log, and depth sounder connected to Nexus computer, and new plotter (Navman) with separate GPS.

New VHF with DSC, connected to the Navman, new radio.

New sprayhood, new fresh water tank with electrical pump,

All lights, navigation and interior, changed to LED. New battery charger for continuous running, Two new batteries.

OK cruising headsail and genua 3, old spinnakker.

Here are some images of the state of the boat when i took over:

Still it was clear there would be a lot to do and investments were needed.

First i needed to upgrade the sails. The roller genua was ok for cruising but not good enough for racing. Also the spinnaker was old and lost some of its shape and it was far too small according to the LYS formula for the boat. So this was the first step: a new racing roller genua 2 and a new 94 m2 spi.

In our first regatta it was blowing 20 knots, the roller furling broke. Steinar the seller is a good guy and he replaced it for me. My sail maker mentioned that this Furlex 100 was too small for the boat and actually new damages occurred soon after.

I was from the start aware of the old genua travelers being quite worn out. They were of the sliding type and this was not good enough. We need ball bearing genua leads so that trimming the genua is easier. Mounting slider leads on such a boat in the first place seems a stupid idea. But i thought i'll wait with replacing them. Then the starboard genua track broke under the Hollender Race. We were going full sails in 15 - 20 knots wind. The sail was slightly cut too high so the genua traveler was all way in the back to depower the top of the genua. The track screws were simply ripped out. The size of the washers was ridiculous, just barely bigger then the nuts. Disappointing stupidity! We did not give up but battled on , there was only under a mile until the top mark and after that it would be downwind all the way. But after a very short time the uneven load made the furler to break. We manged to jury rig the sail and ended 17 of 29.

This time i upgraded to Furlex 200. and i got hold on new Selden genua tracks and ball bearing travellers for not to expensive....

Selden Ball Bearing traveller for system 30 (30 mm track)

Finished! 

After that and some maintenance of winches and small details like cleats for spi sheet and for the genua sheets the rig and deck gear is ok. I had the rig properly checked.

There is a slack in the rudder: i was relieved that this is only between the tiller and the rudder stem and not the rudder bearings. Should be relatively easy to fix.

We need a better autopilot. the cheap raymarine 2000 is not good enough and will be replaced with an spx5.

The st200o  to the left is not good enough for downwind sailing. The SPX-5 tp the right has a central computer with a gyro so it is supposed to be the thing...

So this is it for the deck and above so far. More sailing inventory has to wait if not somebody offers me a light wind genua 1.

Under dekk there were many opportunities for improvement:

The interior on this boat is modified, the head moved aft to port and they built a compartment both for the head and aft cabin. These doors were too low and i hit my head seriously so many times that in the end i threw out the doors , cut a higher opening and made new doors. I never hit my head there anymore. But there were other head dangers. The windows were of the type with screws and these were just 1cm too long. I hit my head several times with nasty results. They had to go and were replaced with shorter screws so that they are embedded in the window frame. That's the whole point of this frame besides that it is supposed to look good. So the windows will went out and this is an opportunity to change them to new dark polycarb windows. This happen simultaneously with the change of genua leads because then i will have to rip open the inner lining anyway. The inner lining was mounted in an terrible amateurish manner. Horrible work! so this will go out and new comes in before the window frames are remounted.

Result:

Original layout:

The drawings below are really not accurate, makes me wonder about the boat industry of those times...

I really loved the modification of the interior especially now when i think i have found ways of overcoming the drawbacks. The compartments provide privacy and we avoid the interior being wet.

Another issue were some horrible cabinets i ripped them out. I also adjusted the pillows, they were still in their original length before the compartments were built which resulted in some loss of seating length in the cabin. I refitted the back support on both sides this was ripped out for unknown reason. With such a boat you dont have a lot of storage space so this is very valuable besides more confi.

Then i threw out the ugly cooking stove for five reasons: well ugly, gas is dangerous and i don't need to bake bread on board but need storage and i want to get rid of some weight. I also never use more than one cooker on board. I went for a cook mate and I rebuilt the galley. The decision was easy when i realised the irregular mounting of the gas bottle with no ventilation. It was no easy way to achieve a ventilated locker for the gas anyway and i really fear gas on board.

This opened up for a little trick to regain full sleeping length on the port seating by making a locker opening in the side of the cabinet were the cooker is stored. with one of the loose pillows you can stick you feet in and have a comfortable sleep. This was one of my worries for longer regattas when we might be crewed up.

The interior will be largely painted white. Pictures of the finished result will follow. Here some work in progres:

Another project is to improve the balance in the boat. It seems a bit front heavy and tilts a few degrees to port.

The tilt i don't know the reason for but it might be because the diesel tank, the head, the galley and the storage is all on the port side. I will replace the batteries and put them to starboard. The battery for lights and instruments is placed inside the engine room. This is not good for the battery and it obstructs the access to the engine and gear. All the cabling makes it next to impossible to remove the engine hood. Another of those idiotic things i inherited. But now i need a proper engine maintenance so it has to be remade. Also it seems fairly simple to move the diesel tank to starboard.

About the forward tilt I discovered on pictures that the front heavy seems to be a feature of the design. I think this means that crew weight needs to be more aft than what we are used with. With some other designs the boat is horizontal when empty but with crew many designs tend to be aft heavy and they need to be sailed with much of the crew forward of the cockpit It seems with this design it makes sense to remain in the cockpit instead of moving weight too much forward. but this has to be checked in different conditions with waves etc.

Check the dirt waterline on this original picture from the beneteau site below:

About our experiences:

The boat seems so far very stable to sail. The former owner of the FC10 gunsmoke expressed it this way in a forum: "Probably the most stable platform I have sailed on ever (sailed on everything from dinghies to 50 footers)."

I so far tend to agree. It can take a lot of heel under spinnaker before loosing the grip so i don't know what to think about those who claim it to be a nervous boat. I am used to nervous boats so this seems very stable to me.

We started i must admit further down the ladder than anticipated, but as we slowly build up the sail inventory and get more used with the boat and having total focus on boat speed we are climbing!

One headache is that the boat is faster on port than starboard. This might be partly due to the disbalance and might get better when the weight distribution is improved. but it can also be due to rig issues.

Top spead so far ~12 knots. check the polar numbers in the menu to the left.

And finally some words about the important and expensive stuff: Sails.

I have by spring 2013 new North Sails 3DL Carbon main and Genua 1, pluss new Spinakker. A genua 4 heavy weather jib is remade form a fairly new dacron jib.

A Genua 2 for roller furling. This is especially for short handed racing and also covers normal wind range while the Carbon 3DL Genua 1 is for light winds.

As we are allowed to have five head sails in the Norwegian handicap system i can have one more to compleete the set. I think this is going to be a reaching / heavy weather spi.

I use the old sails for cruising only. it is a full battened dacron main, a roller genua 2 and a smaller than max spi.

Here some fotos of details: