There’s no doubt that Novara stands out from the crowd. She’s big, with a black hull, and most striking of all, her free-standing all-carbon fibre aerorigs towering over the water like spires.

Novara’s aerorigs are her super power. The self rotating carbon fiber rig is easy to handle, and perfect for short-handed cruising, particularly in extreme conditions. Ease the sheets to weather-cock the sails and booms to windward and Novara is instantly de-powered. Simples!

But Novara’s aerorigs need some TLC. They were built in 1997 by Carbospars of South Hampton, England and they’ve now seen many 10s of thousands of miles of sailing. Time to get them hauled out, checked over and repainted.

After looking for the right rigging specialist around the UK, we found First Spars – and they’re perfect for the job. With the dedicated rigging yard in Southampton, heavy-lift capabilities, deep water mooring, temperature-controlled paint shop and skilled engineers they’re exactly what we need for a high-spec job like this. According to Bart Sobieszczanski, COO “We were excited to pitch our services to refurbish Novara aerorigs, and for many reasons, one being simply in love with beautiful yachts; having expertise of Pav Barwicz our CTO with high latitude expedition yachts and one of the best facilities to deliver such complex project in UK gives us confidence to deliver results. Moreover Novara being the official yacht of the One Planet Project gives us not only opportunity to support the vision of Nigel and Veronica, but potentially look seriously on how we operate as a marine services business in the future when environmental impact is considered. We hope this project will initiate big changes in our operations with benefit to both the clients and the planet. So we think Novara One Planet Project is already delivering on its promise, FS is proud to be part of it.”

After shifting Novara from Dover to Southampton on 19-20 November, Novara was moored at Itchen Marina ready for the makeover. And what a makeover it will be. The masts and booms will be documented and stripped of the fittings. The masts will then be lifted out and shifted to the paint shop where the booms and masts will be separated and subjected to non-destructive testing of the carbon fibre. Assuming all is ok, the masts and booms will sanded back and painted with a flexible two-part polyurethane Awl grip coating. Finally, the masts will be rewired and restepped back on Novara, ready for another 25 years.