Saloon and Galley
Beyzano has 3 sleeping cabins, 2 heads (shower, toilet and sink), a large saloon with 3 sofas, galley with a double sink, ice box, front opening frige and plenty of storage. She also has a well equipped navigation desk.
Elliott using boh Electronic and Paper Charts
We have made just a few changes to the interior adding a rail into the forward shower so it can be used as a full length hanging wardrobe for long dresses (had to take one ball dress just in case!), new taps and corian worktop to the galley, a freezer in the coolbox and sprung mattresses in the forward cabin. For the warmer weather we have fitted fans to all the cabins. The only other ‘domestic’ item we purchased is the generator, so we can have shore power anywhere. Downside is that watermakers and generators seem to be the most unreliable pieces of equipment mentioned in most blogs, so fingers crossed ours behave.
She still has the original porthole covers and leather upholstery although I did think it was synthetic and used to clean it with cif! Ooops.
Christmas 2010
Very nice looking Bene 473, mines a year older than yours, but still blue hulled and looks like the same interior, white uphosltery was not my first choice, but it can be changed.
Made a few changes, renewing the standing rigging was needed, added diverters for the genoa and staysail halyards as my boat seem to be prone to halyard wrap, and also added a thrid reef to the main as it was way too powerful in a real blow (been out in a F10 – by mistake).
See you have a crusing chute, does Beyzano have a bowsprit/deck fitting for the chute). Ocean Banquet does not, and I fly the chute off the spin pole, so far have used 4 times, with 2 persons onboard, will be attempting to fly it single handed in a couple days time (it is fitted with a snuffer).
Anyway, I wish you all the best for the ARC, I certainly intend to follow you nearer to my retirement.
All the best
Nigel
No, she doesn’t have a bowsprit but we did think about that. Chute seems to work well, just with the 2 of us but we haven’t tried out the Spinnaker yet – too big for 2 I think so with our intrepid crew we will give it a go.
Perhaps we will meet in the future then – depends when you are following us. I noticed hardly any (none this year) 473s do an ARC blog which I was hoping for, to give us ideas and issues to think about. I hope we manage to do one, so you can see if any equipment failed, problems and highlights of the trip.
Happy Sailing!