January, 2017

The proposal by the British shipwrights was accepted by Riviera CEO Noboru Watanabe. On January 23, Cynara was lifted from the bay waters off Seabornia Marina and placed on the dock in preparation for her restoration.

May 2017

The shipwrights arrived in April with their work caught out for them. The first job was to clear the interior. That meant everything from emptying the lockers and draining the bilge to emptying the tanks. Then began the deliberate and methodical dismantling, which required cataloguing every item that was removed.

The tent to house Cynara was still under construction, so the focus was on items that wouldn’t open her up to the elements—the rudder (above) for example, the capping rails and bulwarks (below) and the bowsprit (bottom).

For the moment, she was only being held up by timber and scaffold shores (above), and access was by ladder. Once indoors we could do a more complete job of buttressing her and getting to work on correcting the shape of her hull.

A crane was used to remove the Yanmar diesel engine, which was sent off for repair.

The interior parts, carefully marked and catalogued, were removed and placed under the finished tent while the boat was being readied to move into place.