As I like to say, Lulu is one fantastic boat. There is a bow thruster on Lulu that makes docking in a slip much easier, and it is controlled by both a control panel in the cockpit as well as by a remote control device. There is nothing wrong with the functionality of the control panel today, it is the little joystick controller pictured above. However, we noted when sailing that the sheets for our mainsail would easily spill over the edge of the cockpit seat and get caught on the joystick. If we didn’t notice, there could be a huge force pulling on the joystick as the sheets rolled across it.
The joystick is already a little bent, and because we found the mainsheet stuck on it so many times, we decided that flat controller would be better than tearing off the joystick by accident. So last weekend Magnus took out the joystick and replaced it with the flat control panel also pictured above. Several items on our job list are preventative maintenance, another reason we found it important to have a summer with the boat before setting sail on a longer trip.