Refitting SV Wolfs Interior

Last year my dad and I did a refit from the ground up of all the board electrics onboard Wolf. But the interior still needs a lot of work, being 48 – years old. This is a short update on exactly that. We drove 1,100 km all the way from Austria back to the Netherlands (once again), where Wolf is safely stored dry during the cold, nordic winter.

What needs to be done?

We set up three main tasks to get done during the five days in the Netherlands: First, remove the old inner-hull covers and install new ones with insulation, which I have prepared at home. The next big task is to finally install the new liferaft holder on the stern. Last but not least, I want to screw on an antenna carrier next to the pit, to get rid of any antennas on the stern pulpit to finish the refit.

New insulation

By far the biggest task of this refit was to remove the old hull covers, which were glued to the fiberglass hull. Using a flat screw driver it took the whole first day to get rid of them and prepare the hull to glue on the new ones.

Back in 1976, when Wolf was built, Dehler used some kind of carpeting and cork between this and the hull as insulation. This carpeting developed some smell over the years and defenitely wasn’t nice to look at anymore. Also it had some kind of a brown color, which made the interior of the boat pretty dark.

After a day and a whole night of nonstop work, it was finally done. All the old carpeting was removed and the new one glued on.

Drilling holes in boats

A huge bummer until now was the lack of a storage for the liferaft on deck. So the 40 kg raft got thrown into the small aft cabin and was pretty much always in the way. I don’t think I would’ve been able to get it on deck in a real emergency.

So it is a huge update to finally install a liferaft mount to the stern. This one was custom made for Wolf and is mounted to the stern pulpit and the hull. This way not all of the weight is on the railing and the whole cunstruction is much more resistant to a wave smashing against it.

Installing that whole thing wasn’t that big of a challenge. Screwing the holes for the hull mounts on the right spot, seal them up and screw the mounting frame on. Et voila! The only challenge was to heave the 40 kg beats of a liveraft into it, preferably without dropping it two meters on the asphalt below (since Wolf is stored on the parking lot of the marina).

Drilling more holes in boats

Next up was my self-built antenna carrier. Until now, the only antenna at the stern is the Navtex reciever. A second VHF antenna for an AIS and additional equipment will soon need to find a place. Since I don’t want every antenna on the stern pulpit, I decided on a carrier which is to be mounted on the starboard side.

I built it by connecting two stainnless steel tubes together, both with a diameter of 25 mm and connecting them with a T-bone. This was done back at home. The only task now is to (again) drill four holes and fix it to the stern pulpit as support. This turned out to work great! Just repositioning the Navtex antenna onto the carrier…and finished. Now there is finally a central place for all antennas, other than the main VHF antenna in the masttop.

Finishing the refit up

After four days and one whole night of work, the refit is finally accomplished. Everything we wanted to do was completed. Also the work surface of the galley was re-done in white, together with a few smaller things like installing the compass, which went into service and got a lighting installed.

All in all it is a huge difference to how Wolf looked before. Finally I get that cozy feeling when going below deck and it begins to feel like a home.