Hi Dylan,
Hi Ed, I hope Dylan doesn’t mind MOB’s using his site to chat to each other. I had one of the early Mk 1’s in 1972 built by Ridgeway Marine. A brilliant boat, well worth any amount of work that’s required to bring it up to spec.
Now, Dylan can tell you that I have a habit of spreading doom and despondency, in his case regarding Centaur bilge keels.
HOWEVER, if you intend doing some serious tuning for racing be very wary of over-tightening the rigging. There is no support under the mast inside the cabin to take the load down to the hull. The load is taken by the deck structure and the result can be side decks that slope inboard towards the cabin. In other words, the cabin is strong enough but the rig-tension can push the whole cabin downwards taking the side decks with it. Nothing actually breaks, the side decks stay attached to the hull but sag down towards the cabin.
This didn’t happen to my boat (I was just a happy-go-lucky cruising type) but I did see more than one Pandora that suffered this way, in fact there was one here in Portugal a few years ago with the same problem. Some owners fitted a frame-work under the mast inside the cabin to spread the load down to the hull.
I don’t know if this only applies to the MK 1’s or not. Hope you don’t mind my mentioning it.
But it’s a terrific boat and you’ll have some thrilling sailing.