2006, April 28

All fittings for the new old star rig are complete. For the first time the star’s sliding gunter rig has been assembled. The dimensions are really impressive. The sail-maker has measured the basic dimensions and will start soon with the production of the gaff main.

2006, April 12

Keel, rudder and skeg of 4614 are fixed below the hull.

2006, April 06

The last high-tech fittings are mounted on deck of 4614. 5114 is still a mess. But we have to set priorities if we want to have, as planned, one of our stars ready to be on the Alster Lake during the International German Championship 2006 in May.

2006, March 27

A full size Tornado hits Hamburg-Harburg and passes the Starboat workshop in less than 100m!

We have been extremely lucky! The three stars survived without any damage in the boat yard, while other sailors have not been so lucky: about 40 yachts have been completely destroyed by the tornado - in less than 100m distance.

The articles and pictures are cut-outs from the newspapers (“Die Welt”, “Hamburger Abendblatt”, “Harburger Anzeigen und Nachrichten”).

For about a week nobody is able and has permission to enter the destroyed region of the “Harburger Schloßinsel” Only the workers of the construction companies and utilities are busy to clean up the region.

2006, March 23

The first test to fit the renovated keel under the hull takes place. The hull is covered above the water line by 4 layers of yacht paint (International “Schooner”). Some more coatings will follow later, as well the the coating below the water line.

2006, March 16

The teak deck and the teak cockpit is nearly completed and finished. The carving of the integrated base for the radial boom vang traveller has started.

In March 2006 (and April) the renovation of Star 4614 is in the hot phase and every day you can see the progress of the work. In the beginning we planned a monthly update of the NEWS page. We decided for the next weeks to have a weekly or at least bi-weekly update of the NEWS to keep the pace of the works on site.

2006, March 09

The iron cast keel has got three layers of sprayed VC17. It looks now like a shiny solid block of copper. Some people would place it as a modern sculpture in their living room.

2006, March 02

The teak planking of the new deck has started and makes good progress

2006, February

D-DAY (Deck’s Day)! In an “All-Hands-on-Deck” action 4614 has got the new plywood deck epoxied in one piece to the hull structure. Congratulations to the young team who did an excellent job!

2006, January

Done! While the stripping and sanding of the hull was quite fast, the cleaning of the hulls from inside and stripping the old (unknown kind and number of) layers of paint proved to be a difficult and time consuming job with all the frames and other structural elements. But at last both stars (4614, shown here, and 5114) show a beautiful and well conserved wooden surface with only minor damages - after more than 40 years!