Our Boat – Bojangles IV
This is our boat, Bojangles IV, a 1980 Gulfstar 50 ketch that we bought in Sag Harbor, NY in 2006.
Bojangles IV, our home and vessel, is a 1980 Gulfstar 50 ketch that we purchased in 2006 in Sag Harbor, New York. While the Gulfstar 50 is highly regarded as a bluewater cruising boat, Bojangles was a lightly equipped boat in need of some reasonably significant upgrades in order to become ‘bluewater ready’.
For 3 seasons, we sailed and enjoyed Bojangles on Lake Ontario and Lake Erie but held off on major refit activities until we had a well defined plan of the projects that we wanted to undertake on the boar. Then, in 2008, when we began to ‘lock in’ to a 2009 departure, we started to tackle some of the projects on the re-fit list. As the winter of 2008/09 took hold, the 2009 departure became fully locked in and the re-fit began in earnest.
Here’s what we’ve done so far:
2008
- New saloon cushions and upholstery
- Dinghy davits
- Exterior teak refinishing
- Deck re-coring
- Non-skid repainting
2009
- Power supply
- House battery bank (900Ah)
- New starting battery
- 2kw inverter/charger
- 130W solar panel with MPPT controller
- Air Breeze wind generator
- Link 1000 charge controller
- Balmar high output alternator
- On board comfort
- New dodger and bimini
- New cockpit cushions
- Eight electric fans
- Water filtration
- New electronics
- Raymarine C-80 plotter
- Raymarine ST60 instruments (wind, depth, speed)
- Raymarine 2Kw radome
- AIS Receiver
- New navigation station
- ST60 Multi-display
- Communications
- ICOM 802 SSB Radio
- Pactor modem (with Pactor 3 license)
- Safety
- Liferaft
- 406Mhz Epirb