Bernardo  (cell phone) 011-52-61-717926  He will answer "Bueno" and speaks

Awhile back when I mentioned that we were purchasing a Litton 42 and having a facelift performed in Ensenada, B.C. several list members asked that I post a review of our experience. Well, we are in our third week of shipyard activity so I thought this would be a good time to give an update. Probably the most important issue is where to stay while in Ensenada both before and after the shipyard work. You cannot realistically expect to arrive and get into the yard on a predetermined schedule. Around the basin, which is really downtown, there are several small "marinas" that have slips available. Gordos and Baja Naval are the ones that I am familiar with and are next door to each other. There is a LOT of activity here as Gordos operates a fleet of sports fishing boats and Baja Naval is, of course, a shipyard. There are a LOT of birds also. If one comes down only for yardwork these would be OK but if the purpose is to take offshore delivery then the 91 days might be, shall we say, difficult. Probably the best bet would be the Marina Coral further North. These are first class slips in a first class marina. The dockmaster, Fito, is great and will assist in obtaining everything from clearance papers to excellent contractor references. For a first time visitor this is the place to go. Once in the marina, it is easy to get contractors to visit and give estimates for whatever work you wish to have done. First off, it takes a little research to determine exactly what capabilities are available in Ensenada. Most boat owners in Southern California have at least a passing exposure to the primary yard, Baja Naval, either through acquaintances or from the ads that appear in the San Diego Log and/or Santana. As it turns out there are at least two and maybe three other yards that can be used for yacht repair and refinishing. The largest is Industrial Naval on the north side of the basin, then there are two more smaller yards that cater to the fishing fleet. In our case, we knew that Claudacious needed a keel to mast-top face lift as well other mechanical stuff any twenty year old boat needs. Fito, recommended that a contractor named Bernardo Villalva, (Villalva Yacht painting) give us an estimate. In addition we had a representative of Baja Naval quote the same job. Basically, both yards quoted the same level of work. Bottom paint would be two coats of Pro-line commercial (1088 with TBT) and three at the water line. Hull, cabin trunk, cockpit, and fly bridge cosmetically repaired, some fiberglass repair, two primer coats (one high build), fairing, and three coats of L.P. This included a new bootstripe but did not include a new boat name. Baja Naval came in at $14,000 USD and Bernardo at $16,700 USD. On reading the contracts some interesting differences became evident which would have an impact on the actual price. Baja Naval would charge lay-days for any day in which less then 8 man-hours of work was not accomplished and did not include any repairs that were not detected during the estimating process. Bernardo was a fixed price, regardless of time or additional repairs relating to the painting. I have been in many shipyards and know that additional work will ALWAYS be necessary and once the process begins it cannot be stopped. We opted to go with Bernardo. Also Baja Naval has an eight or nine month waiting list which would put us into July, 1999. Now to find a Shipyard. we had a couple of choices. Industrial Naval does BIG ships but has set aside one corner of the yard for yachts. Economically, if one has a vessel over 70' this would be a good option. They use a Scyncro-Lift for the haul-out (up to 600 ft or so) and then use a rail system to move vessels to an assigned work area. By Ensenada standards this is an expensive operation relative to marine railways or travel-lifts. Also, lay-days are expensive by Ensenada standards. For our boat, this yard would have added an additional $5,000 in cost. Bernardo prefers a small yard which can pull only a couple of boats and which services shrimp and lobster boats up to about 60 feet. It is about one block north of Baja naval and uses sort of a marine railway. This is where we went. We have been in the yard for three weeks and so far everything is on schedule and looking great. Some additional work was uncovered that was outside of the original scope. First, we found a big soft spot on the boat deck where the glass had delaminated and the plywood deck was rotten. To repair meant ripping up about 10 ft2 of teak, cutting the deck out, replacing the wood, reglassing, and then overlaying new teak deck. This cost $600.00. We also decided to recaulk all the teak. This was the deck, cabin trunk, walkways, boat deck, cockpit and flybridge. Add another $2400.00. This also included sanding the deck and two coats of Simco. Typical labor rates run $10.00 per hour to maybe $25.00 per hour for skilled labor which makes performing labor intensive repairs like recaulking about 6 miles of seams very attractive. In addition, we are having all four cutlass bearings replaced, both rudders dropped and repaired as necessary, and all thru-hull valves replaced. When do you stop? At $10.00/hour, might as well do it all. So far, the quality of workmanship is as high as any yard I have been in in San Diego, just different. Things are done differently but it works. At this point, I would recommend Bernardo very highly. He is absolutely a man of his word and I saw some areas of dry rot that they dug out, reglassed and repaired without additional cost. Other areas that had stress cracking were also repaired and reinforced without charge. Here are some phone numbers. Bernardo (cell phone) 011-52-61-717926 He will answer "Bueno" and speaks good English Baja Naval 011-52-61-740020 Marina Coral 011-52-61-750000 and ask for the marina office We will do a follow-up in a couple of weeks when Claudacious is back it its slip at Marina Coral. Dick & Pat Simonis M/V Claudacious San Diego, CA