Freja is now at Adams Boatcare in Sweden. She’ll soon be de-masted, hoisted onto land, and then put to bed in a huge, heated boat shed. We’ll start the 2016 season sometime in April, after the long Swedish winter is over.
The little marina at Adams Boatcare
Adams Boatcare is located on Vindö, (Orust) on Sweden’s beautiful northwest coast. Orust has been know for many years as “the boatbuilding island”, home to Hallberg-Rassy, Malö Yachts, Najad, the former Sweden Yachts, and the former Vindö Yachts and Regina af Vindö. We actually visited this area back in 2011 on a motorcycle trip, just to dream and admire the boats. We never would have dreamed that we would have a sailboat here just 4 years later.
Jovial Carl Adams and the warm and always smiling Anna Friberg are parters in business as well as in life. They were recently given the opportunity to rent the former Regina af Vindö yard. It came complete with all of the modern woodworking machines and painting/varnishing/fibreglassing facilities used to build the Reginas as well as a huge amount of heated boat storage space. We had the opportunity to tour the premises during their Crayfish party in September, and it is wonderful.
Carl and Anna were both employees of the famous Swedish sailboat builder Hallberg-Rassy. When they decided to strike out on their own a few years ago and build a network of individual specialists dedicated to re-fitting and customising boats, Adams Boatcare was born. Anna is a magician with anything made of wood, and Carl does just about anything, having rotated through a number of different posts at H-R. He also attended the most prestigious boat-building school in the U.K.
After seeing up-close the fabulous re-fit they did with HR-46 Regina Laska and then meeting with them last year, we decided that Freja would definitely spend the next few winters in Sweden.
Beautiful weather for the Adams Boatcare crayfish party
Even though Freja is a brand-new boat (launched last July 7), we do have a short list of things we just never thought of asking for while the boat was still in build at Discovery. It takes some time cruising and living on the boat to come up with ideas that make cruising or just living on the boat easier.
To give you some examples, we’ve asked Carl and Anna to:
- propose and create a good way to store our wine and champagne glasses (we are wine producers, so both excellent wine and wine glasses are important!
- change the shaver sockets to normal Euro sockets in both heads
- install a folding swim ladder that an MOB can easily unfold and use while in the water. The existing one can be cut and hinges soldered on, according to Carl.
- create a “wine cellar” in the storage area under the galley sole in front of the refrigerator.
- install a small fan underneath the saloon seating to keep objects stored under the seating well-ventilated.
- install a spinnaker halyard guide so the halyard doesn’t get wrapped in the foil for the inner forestay again.
We’ll probably think of a few other things over the winter!
Just up the road from Adams Boatcare. This is such a beautiful part of Sweden.
View of the area around Adams Boatcare