32ft Reinke Yacht Renovation By Mike

Passat” is a 10 metre, GRP Reinke built in Berlin in 1970. The previous owner told me that he had sailed more than 60,000 miles in the yacht before suffering a heart attack. She was then laid up in a barn for 15 years before I bought her.

This project has been going on for 15 years now as I bought the boat in 2005 and right at the outset found that it was a much bigger project than I envisaged. Firstly the Bukh engine was beyond economical repair so I purchased a second hand Yanmar 3GM30 and overhauled it. This meant cutting out the engine bearers and glassing in new ones.

Then I found that even after being in storage for 15 years, the keel was full of water and after cutting an exploratory hole in the side, it was decided that this too was not fit for purpose having been constructed of hollow ferro-cement with a glass skin, ballasted with billets of stainless steel. So I had a Naval Architect design a new keel in 10mm steel that could be welded together on site. This was done and then ballasted to the same weight and CofG as the old one using lead from a derelict yacht that I bought for £1, and melted into the keel. Also the rudder was found to be in a similar condition and I decided to fit a Hanse rudder which meant reconfiguring the hull. This I had done professionally. At this stage I was working in Australia on a six week rotation so didn’t really get much time to work on the boat again until I retired in 2014 at the age of 72. I then built a light aircraft and restored two vintage motorcycles before starting in earnest on the boat.

Over the last 3 years I have been working on reconfiguring the interior with a new cooker and sink and am at present working on re-wiring the electrics.