After completing the rewiring of Mini Skippy in January, I sailed through February, March and April and I was seeing my confidence grow - short-tacking up the Small Roads into St Helier harbour seemed less daunting, less onerous, less scary. Adjusting sail area to the conditions was becoming less of a marathon. I was getting better at anticipating and avoiding stressful situations on the water before they arose.

However, sailing was going to need to take a back seat because structural modifications were required to the Maxi 6.50's to reinforce and strengthen the boats and to alleviate the performance weaknesses with the keel: lee helm despite significant rake and extreme leeway.

COVID restrictions meant that I preferred to carry out the works in Jersey where I could be at the yard to help and made aware of any issues or difficulties as they arose. A modification kit was duly ordered and after weeks of difficulties, finally delivered. By this time though, it was too late for the first races of the season, the Trophée MAP and the Mini Fastnet and I had to cancel my registration for both.

Tom, my co-skipper for the double-handed races in the calendar, helped me with lifting Mini Skippy out of the water and in taking her keel off to prepare for the modification works at GRP Marine.

Work started in earnest at GRP Marine, cutting out an access/inspection panel in the foam-filled forward buoyancy compartment, removing all the foam and then sanding the interior ready for the reinforcements to come.

I had thought that the modifications would be complete by April but because of the delays in receiving the kit, work didn't actually start until the end of April but this was going to be ok because at least I would be able to race later in the season and complete my 1000 NM qualification passage.

However, a nasty discovery at GRP Marine was going to mean more waiting, more delay and more work.....

What followed was a very intense process of investigating to explore the extent of the damage, taking photos, emailing and waiting for responses from the yard in France to understand the best way forward.

It was finally decided that a new panel would be moulded in France and delivered along with sufficient cloth to replace the entirety of the damaged section. Mini Skippy was going to be out of action for much longer than the anticipated few weeks of modifications. I therefore had to cancel my participation from another race, the Calvados Cup; familiarity unfortunately did not take away the pain of cancelling yet again.

Work on the modifications couldn't continue until the new panel arrived in Jersey. With Mini Skippy out of action, and so I could feel at least in some way productive, I tried to do as much maintenance and forward planning as I possibly could.

I took apart the steering assembly, the winches and the clutches; I ordered new running rigging since some of the ropes were starting to fall apart after over 7000nm of sailing; I took apart the mast and its associated standing rigging only to discover wear and tear on the backstays and a shroud with a broken strand of wire at the upper terminal swage - another order was made.

I ordered a new boom since I had creased the original boom when I stupidly left a winch handle in the central winch during a manoeuvre and a new spinnaker pole to replace the one I had broken off Noirmont when it decided to go for a swim because I hadn't tied the retaining elastics tight enough.

I found that a repair I had made to my tiller was beginning to fail and I needed to inspect and repair the damage more thoroughly - job duly added to the "to do while at GRP Marine" list.

While I was going through this process of taking things apart, cleaning them, repairing them or ordering new parts, I found out about another modification required for the Maxi fleet. A few boats had managed to break the stainless part on which the tiller rotates and which connects the rudders to the autopilot. Breaking this part means losing effective steerage with the rudders and so it was decided that we should reinforce the join in this part with another weld. Luckily this was one of the parts I had already taking apart and a friend was able to sort this for me (Thank you Will!).

I was now getting to know my way around a number of mainly online suppliers for varied technical items from in-line circular electrical connectors, to circlips (to fix my furler for my Gennaker - I didn't mention that one yet!!), to rod-end bearings, to replacement parts for winches, etc.

I was learning a huge amount about the boat and its rigging. But it didn't feel fast or much like progress at all, it felt often that I would take something apart and find something was broken or about to be and that then I would need to work out what to do about it. Especially so because in Jersey, direct access to specialist suppliers is fairly limited.

Somewhat less technical but more time and labour intensive were my rudders - the antifoul was flaking off and they had had various knocks and dents so I decided to sand them down and refair them. Initially, I was wet sanding by hand to avoid getting antifoul dust everywhere but once I was through the fluorescent yellow, it was much faster to knock back with my orbital sander. Then it was a slightly repetitive process of applying fairing compound, sanding with a small longboard I made specifically for the rudders from a scrap of laminate and two bits of wood for handles.

The peculiarity of the Maxi rudders is the "fences" which are the sticky out bits near the top of the blade. These were added to improve the efficiency of the rudders and ensure that the water flowed horizontally across the rudders and didn't flow vertically up the rudder, greatly reducing the effectiveness of the blade and hence control. They are secured with a filleted joint of bonding paste but I noticed cracks in the joint at the aft edge of the blade and so I sanded back to the laminate in this zone to be able to redo the joint.

With all this sanding and fairing, I was also thinking (hopefully, wishfully) of the final finishing and so I ordered the paints I would need for the rudders and the hull since after all the repair work I was going to need to refinish the hull and I needed to apply new antifoul anyway.

Eventually, the new panel made it intact to Jersey so we could now get started on the repair and then the modifications.

We wheeled Mini Skippy back into GRP Marine's shed and after some head scratching, we found a solution to allow us to take away the front trailer support to give access from outside the boat to the damaged area.

The first step was particularly daunting - cutting the damaged area completely out of the boat. Luckily, Chris had a steady hand with his diamond wheel!

The next step was to cut under all the structural beams which were still attached to the damaged panel. Once this was done, a few wedges provided the persuasion the damaged panel needed to drop from the boat.

This was a complete dive-in at the deep-end crash course in boat repair and I was very glad of my 3M 6000 full face dust mask without which life in the GRP Marine shed would have been very difficult!!