Robert Perry in Sailing magazine

Robert Perry, a renowned yacht designer in his own right, has written a brief review of New Morning in the December issue of Sailing magazine.

New Home page

If you came straight to the blog, check out the new home page. Right up there near the left corner, click Home.

More photos

By popular demand - more photos. First I added a couple new shots that Billy Black took as we were departing Newport. Next are the pictures from our passage from Bermuda to the BVIs. And finally a whole bunch of pictures of New Morning that Billy shot last summer showing various details of the exterior, some really luscious shots of the interior, and a variety of shots while sailing.

New Feature: Locavore

“Locavore” is the Oxford University Press 2007 Word of the Year. "Locavore" was coined two years ago by a group of four women in San Francisco who proposed that local residents should try to eat only food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius. Other regional movements have emerged since then, though some groups refer to themselves as “localvores” rather than “locavores.”

However it’s spelled, Fay will be writing a new feature on local fresh food as we move from port to port. Checkout the Locavore page to learn more and see what she has to say about Coastal New England.

Home to California

Today we moved New Morning to a mooring adjacent the Bitter End here
in Virgin Gorda. We setup a nice bridle with lots of chafe gear.
Then as a backup we attached the anchor rode for our Fortress (minus
the chain) to the chain below the mooring ball. Hopefully she will
ride safe and sound while we're away.

We're flying back to California tomorrow for four weeks. With better
bandwidth at home I'll post some pictures from the passage from
Bermuda to BVI, as well as unveil a couple of new features on the site.

Stay tuned!

British Virgin Islands

We're just passing Anegada with about 15 miles to Virgin Gorda. We just
played "New Morning" in the cockpit, now it's Iz's version of "Over
the Rainbow". Five days and just short of 900 miles we're ready to
take a break. Not all of the trip was in the brochure, but it was
certainly better than the trip from Newport to Bermuda! Time for
breakfast (omlette!), shower, and maybe a beer after customs/
immigration. We'll post some pictures in a few days.

Welcome to the Tropics, here are your squalls!

But I didn't order squalls. No problem, we have plenty for everyone.
And after the 8 hour course of squalls we have "all you can eat" of
tragically disorganized seas.

The seas straightened out a little bit, but we've been bashing into
waves for the last 24 hours. We have 22 kts true wind about 75
degrees on our port side so we've got about 25-27 kts at 50-60
apparent into 5-8 foot seas. Not pleasant, but we're making good time
with just a double reefed main and a staysail.

Only 150 miles to Anegada, then the seas should smooth out a bit.
With luck we'll be in Virgin Gorda by late Tuesday morning.

Smooth sailing

About 5am the breeze came up enough to allow us to shut off the engine
and go sailing. SInce then it's built steadily and clocked a little.
Right now we've got about 10 knots of true wind at 50 degrees so we're
hard on the wind with16 knots and moving nicely. The water is up to 77
so the air is warm and it's a beautiful day!

Later on the wind should back and build as we get into the trades,
giving us about 20-25 knots apparent on the beam. If all of that was
just mumbo-jumbo, then it translates to fast sailing for our last 36
hours!

Fay is deep into "The log of the Sea of Cortez" by Steinbeck, but
currently making nachos for lunch. We checked the AP ram again this
morning and it was still tight, but we backed off the locking nut and
added some blue Locktite just for insurance.

I think we'll both take another shower this afternoon to freshen up.
WIth all the motoring, and wind, and sun, we've got an abundance of
power and water.

If all goes well we should be checking into customs in Virgin Gorda
late morning on Tuesday.

Warm, flat, and a little excitement

We're about 300 miles south of Bermuda and 550 miles away from BVI.
Yesterday was slow progress as we sailed mostly east in light air
(8-12 knots from aft the beam) to position ourselves for the winds we
expect on Sunday and Monday.

Our weather is currently dominated by a high pressure which is right
on top of us, so no wind. We motored all night and we'll motor today
and maybe tonight until the high moves a little further east and we
move south of the high. Then we should begin to pickup the southern
end of the high which will have some SE winds, after that we should
reach the trades which ought to be 15-20 knots from ESE. Since we're
pretty far east, we'll be able to turn towards the west and have a
nice ride into BVI for the last 36 hours. Or that's the theory anyway!

Just after I came on watch at 4am the autopilot quit working and the
boat started making left hand circles until I could get to the
throttle and slow things down. It was too dark to do much so I had
steered until 7am when it was light and Fay was up. To make a long
story short, the autopilot ram had backed out of the fitting that
attaches it to the rudder. With Fay's help, and about an hour and a
half of work we were able to get it reattached and working again.

It's really nice and warm, the water is up to 73 and we're looking
forward to a nice breeze tomorrow.

Departing Bermuda

Commanders just gave us the go on the weather and forecast mostly
light winds for the trip. We're cleaning up from breakfast and
departing shortly. Track our progress on the "Where's New Morning" page.

More pictures

New pictures from Newport and Bermuda.

Thanksgiving departure

Commanders Weather has advised us that Thanksgiving Day would be a
good day for our departure to the BVIs. We've decided to make the
passage without additional crew so we're busy making preparations and
getting New Morning ready for the trip. It's roughly 900 miles almost
due south so we expecting a 5-6 day passage, faster if the winds are
good and seas are fair.

Billy Black photos

I posted a few pictures from Billy Black in the About New Morning section. We'll have many more to display in a month or two.

Bermuda passage photos

There are a few photos from the passage in the "Where we've been" section titled Passage to Bermuda.

Major reorganization

Now that we've moved out of construction and we're underway I decided
it was time to reorganize the site. There are lots of new photos in
the "Where we've been" section. Please don't hesitate to let me know
if I've also broken something in the process.

Arrived!

We came through the cut into St. George about 6:30am Bermuda time.
We're waiting for customs and then we'll move to Hamilton for the next
couple of weeks. The showers feel great!

Nice day of sailing

Today has been a really nice day of sailing. Early in the morning we
had some squalls and rain which washed away some of the heavy coating
of salt we acquired two nights ago. Since then we've had 10-20 knots
of true wind roughly on the beam. The seas are down and everyone is
up and around, feeling great.

JB set the speed record today at 11.2 while being serenaded by Jerry
Garcia, I was second with 11.1. We cranked off a steady 9-10 knots
for about 7 hours, but now we're down to a more leisurely 7.5-8.5.

We've got 90 miles to Bermuda and should arrive in the early hours of
Tuesday. Fay is fixing haddock for dinner!

Warm, Wham, Wild!

We reached the Gulf Stream last night and the water jumped up to 73
degrees. At the same time a cold front met the GS and gave us a wild
ride. We had 30-40 knots of true wind just off our starboard bow all
night in very confused seas. This morning is backed down to 20-30
knots and about 20 knots now. The seas are still very confused,
making for a bouncy, lumpy ride, poor sleep and unsettled tummies.
But the sun is out and the air is warm.

The breeze is expected to taper off over the next 24 hours so we
expect to arrive in Bermuda early Tuesday morning.

The sun is out

A bumpy night, motoring into sloppy seas, unhappy tummies all the way
around. The wind came around about 4am and we started sailing which
settled things down considerably. At noon today we have 9-10 knots,
pretty much on the nose, but the water temp is up to 67 and the sun is
out. We're cutting the corner a little on the route to cross the gulf
stream. Expecting lots of wind tonight, a little less tomorrow, then
lighter as we approach Bermuda.

Fwd: Grey and dreary

Visibility about a mile, overcast, grey, light wind from astern.
We're motoring along into a sloppy SE sea so it's noisy and bumpy.
Fay has a nice pasta dinner for tonight and Justin brought baguettes
from the Atlantic Bakery in Rockland! ** First sent at 5pm on Friday
night.

Bound for Bermuda

The weather window is open so we're departing later today for
Bermuda. We're joined by JB and Justin from Lyman Morse and should be
in Bermuda by Tuesday or Wednesday. We're looking forward to the
warmer weather!

Moving on

Rainy today as a low is moving up the coast. After almost four weeks
in Newport we're planning to depart for Bermuda tomorrow, right behind
the low. We should to be in Bermuda by Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday
if we're delayed. The tanks are topped, the freezer is full and we're
looking forward to some warmer weather.

Final Specification

I updated the Specification (under Design) with the "final"
specification. It's probably 98% accurate and now we're out of the
building process so I doubt it will be further revised.

We're waiting for a weather window to depart for Bermuda, hopefully on
Friday.

Where's New Morning?

We're still in Newport. We can't leave before next Wednesday and the way the weather is developing it's probably more like Thursday or Friday. But we're using our time to prepare, organize the boat, repair/break/repair a few things and generally get caught up on our sleep.

Just before we departed Maine, Ben Ellison, who writes Panbo, a widely read marine electronics blog name, gave us Spot. See Where's New Morning to see how we're using it.

Still in Newport

We're still in Newport, planning to depart for Bermuda the middle of next week.

To our surprise we've had a pretty busy social schedule. Friends came to visit from California last weekend. Friends we met in Thomaston came down to Newport and introduced us to people here and as a result we've had a lot of evenings out.

Friday we got out for a sail to check on a few changes we made and for Billy Black to shoot some additional pictures. He also gave me the green light to post a few of the pictures he took in Maine. The sailing picture was obviously take in light air which was why we did another set of pictures last week in good sailing breeze.

But it does give you an idea of what she looks like under sail. The other two are just great examples of his photography. The shot to the right is from the swim platform looking forward through the cockpit. And to the left is a shot of the interior from the companionway. He takes long exposures and only shoots in the first and last hour of light in the day; the deep blue gives the pictures a lot of depth. We're expecting to see his pictures in 2-3 magazine articles to be published later this year.

Newport!

Last weekend we completed our first passage, from Thomaston, Maine to
Newport, Rhode Island via the Cape Cod Canal. It was roughly 200
miles and overall a really nice trip. Justin from Lyman Morse joined
us for the passage and stood watch with Fay.

We left on Saturday morning with a goal of being at the east entrance
to the canal by 9am on Sunday morning to catch the ebbing current into
Buzzards Bay. We were able to sail from about 11 in the morning until
midnight, first on a nice fast beam reach, and later with the wind on
the nose. The first half of the evening we had 15-20 on the nose and
had to deviate from our desired course by 10-20 degrees, but with
essentially no swell and small waves so it was a fast ride and
relatively smooth. Smooth enough for Fay to make a great pasta
dinner! And then a 3/4 moon lit up the water magnificently.

By midnight we'd been lifted back to our desired course, but when the
wind went aft we couldn't make the speed necessary to reach the canal
and catch the favorable tide so we had to motor. We motored from
roughly midnight, then through the canal and for another hour or so on
Sunday morning crossing Buzzard's Bay. Then we got 6-7 knots of
breeze so we went back to sailing. The breeze built steadily through
the day until we had 12-15 knots of apparent wind that allowed us to
sail all the way into Newport harbor.

My personal highlight was seeing Weatherly, a classic America's Cup 12
meter which successfully defended the cup in 1962. We were on port
gybe and she was on starboard gybe and I expected than when we gybed
(she had the right of way), she would sail right through our lee.
Instead, we sufficiently blanketed her that she slowed significantly
and we actually sailed back over the top of her! A small victory for
the heavy cruising boat (we had just taken on 3,000 lbs of fuel and
water) over the classic racer.

New Morning performed very well, moving quite nicely in the lighter
breezes and standing up well when we were hard on the wind in 17-20
knots for 4-5 hours on Saturday night. A few gremlins are still
lurking in the electronics and electrical systems, but everything else
performed as expected.

Now we're tied up at the Newport Shipyard (established 1834)
surrounded by mega-yachts and a few state of the art racers like
Virgin Money / Speedboat. We'll be here for about two weeks or so
with lots of projects to complete before the passage to Bermuda; we
hope to leave by November 4th or 5th. But today was a rest day so Fay
had a nice long walk through Newport. I stayed on the boat and
enjoyed the warm weather (back to shorts / flip flops) trying to
perfect a better technique for whipping lines.

It's good to be out of Maine and starting our trip.

Last few things

We got back from California and took off for four days of cruising for
a final check. Just after we got back from California they hauled the
boat and cleaned the bottom. There was a lot of marine growth and
barnacles in particular. With a clean bottom and steady NW breezes we
had two of our best days of sailing. We were able to sail all the way
from Pt. Clyde to Rockland, and two days later we were able to sail
all afternoon from Seal Cove on Vinalhaven back to Pt. Clyde (and then
motor up the river to Thomaston).

We found a variety of things that needed attention so we've been back
in Thomaston for the last couple of days. Fortunately the yard made
very good progress and things should be wrapped up today. The fuel
truck is coming in a couple of hours to fill our tanks and we'll also
get our propane tanks topped up.

Fay has done lots of provisioning at the local stores where she can
get great produce, meat, cheese, crab, lobster, shrimp and of course
great bread from Atlantic Bakery. The freezer will be full upon
departure!

It's raining today, but should clear up this afternoon and the
forecast is for lots of sun this weekend. We plan to depart for
Newport late Saturday morning. With a fair breeze we'll be at the
Cape Cod canal on Sunday morning to catch a favorable tide and sweep
us through to Newport by mid-day on Sunday. The journey begins.

Back in the yard

We ended up staying in Somes Harbor longer than expected as the
remnants of hurricane Ike went through, dropping our barograph to
996. Then we returned to Seal Cove on Vinalhaven for another quiet
night. The next day we departed early and picked up friends in
Rockland for the trip back to Thomaston, via Muscle Ridge and all it's
many rocks, islands and ledges.

Tomorrow we're returning to California for 10 days while the yard
finishes up the boat. There are a variety of remedial jobs, plus some
modifications based on our initial experience. We'll also get hauled
out, clean the bottom, check the prop and zincs and generally prepare
for our departure from Maine. The rough plan is to depart for
Newport, Rhode Island the second week of October, then on to Bermuda
when we get a weather window in early November.

While the weather has been clear and beautiful between the fronts, the
temperature has really dropped and it's time to head south.

Escape from Thomaston

Last Tuesday we finally escaped from Thomaston, straight into fall and a nasty stormy day. We were literally in shorts and t-shirts in the morning, and full foul weather gear in drenching rain followed by a thunderstorm five hours later and 40 degree temps in the morning. But we escaped and are now able to spend some time sailing in Maine.

We spent the first night about 20 miles (as the boat motors) away in Long Cove, not far from where we had the christening in Tenants Harbor. The wind blew and we got bounced around quite a bit since the cove is quite large and not well protected from the south. And the next morning when we raised anchor it was like raising a dredge, we had a huge scoop of Maine on our bow.

The second day we had a delightful sail to Seal Cove on Vinalhaven (is this where LPs go to die?). The boat really sailed nicely in 10-25knots of apparent wind from a close reach to hard on the wind. Seal Cove was a spectacular anchorage that we had all to ourselves with barely a ripple on the water. As there was poor weather coming our way we pushed on the next day to Somes Harbor (search for Somesville in Google Earth) at the end of Somes Sound on Mt. Desert Island. This is now our third night here as the weather has been unsettled with a mix of rain and wind. And besides, it's quiet and beautiful here. This picture was taken from the boat this morning after a lot of rain and wind last night.

We're adjacent Acadia National Park so today we took the bus to Bar Harbor (a disappointing visit as it looked like any other cruise ship stop, crammed with schlocky stores) and rented bikes. We then caught another bus which took us and our rented bikes to Acadia National Park. Within the park we road more than 20 miles along the carriage trails in the park. A really beautiful ride and it felt good to get some aerobic exercise.

Maine is incredibly scenic, though the weather is not always as beautiful as the scenery. Sometimes I think that Maine made a deal with the devil; they got the incredible scenery, but had to accept some questionable weather and those using the waterways are cursed with navigating through literally several hundred thousand lobster buoys! And though we try to avoid them, we've chopped up our fair share.

Depending on the weather our next stop will probably be Burnt Coat Harbor on Swan's Island.

Electrical diagram

I haven't had time to write a narrative, but I've posted a conceptual schematic of the electrical system.

Nice cruise, now back to finishing the boat

We had a nice cruise with a night in Pulpit Harbor, then two nights in
Cabot's Cove while a small front moved through. We spent the time
unpacking boxes and trying to get settled on the boat. Fay took
charge of the dinghy with her own 2hp engine, total independence! She
went ashore on North Haven, picked wild berries and then walked to the
market to buy fresh crab. Then I was treated to a great dinner of
fresh crab cakes and wild berries. This is the cruising life!

Now we're back in Thomaston for another week of work on the boat.
Miscellaneous carpentry tasks need to be finished, a few rigging items
and some electronics to be sorted out. We'll spend Tuesday and
Wednesday in Camden while they work on the boat, then come back on
Thursday to see how everything is progressing. If all goes well we'll
leave on Friday for another 10 days of shake out cruise.

We just got a CD from Billy Black with some stunning pictures of the
boat. Now that we have some bandwidth I'll try to post some of those
in the next few days.

First night

Last night was our first night anchored out. We're off Conway Shore
on Vindalhaven, about 7 miles east of Rockland.

Beautiful sunset as we anchored. Too many lobster buoys but otherwise
incredibly scenic.

And strangley we have intermittent cell coverage so I can get out this
message. Next is getting the sat phone email working.

Please excuse the typo's and brevity. Sent from my iPhone

Equipment failure

No, nothing on the boat, my computer died. As a result I've been
unable to post pictures from the christening party. Lyman Morse is
grinding through the punch list and we're planning to move onto the
boat Friday. Then we'll spend a day or two getting settled before
leaving for a few days of sailing.

The rain has backed off a bit and we've had several sunny days. Last
night we went to the Union Fair, a very nice local fair with 4H club
animals, lots of junk food and our favorite: the DEMOLITION DERBY! A
surprisingly small grassy field area contained by some fairly modest
concrete barriers that kept the spectators about 20' away from the
smashing cars, steaming radiators and burning tires.

The computer should be back next week so when we're back from sailing
I'll post some pictures.

Wow! Three days of parties and we're exhausted!

We were overwhelmed by the efforts of our friends and family to
celebrate New Morning. Many people came from California, up from
further south on the eastern seaboard, and even as far as London.
While the rain poured down (canceling some flights and causing
delays for everyone) we celebrated at the house in Tenants Harbor on
Friday afternoon followed by dinner at the Dip Net in Pt. Cylde.

But on Saturday the weather was glorious! The lighting was
spectacular at the Lyman Morse dock in Tenants Harbor where Caitlin
did the honors and broke another bottle of champagne across New
Morning's bow. Everyone toured the boat and the comments and
compliments were very gracious! Then we moved to In Good Company in
Rockland where we had a great dinner and enough wine to cause more
than on person to dip into the aspirin locker on Sunday morning!

Sunday the weather was more spotty with sun in Tenants Harbor, but
thick fog just outside Southern Island. We did venture out in the
morning and again in the afternoon, but the fog, lobster buoys and
light air conspired to make both trips a challenge. None the less
everyone enjoyed getting away from the dock and getting a feel for New
Morning when underway.

That's a quick report, we'll post pictures and more later this week.

The last 1%

We're moving forward. The last 1% is the most painful. We take two
steps forward, then one step back as we solve two problems, but expose
another. But in the process we hope we're creating a reliable vessel.

We spent three days on board last week and took a 3 hour trip down the
river and then back to Thomaston. We exposed some problems, but also
had a nice afternoon on the water. The weather has been pretty awful
with lots of rain and some thunderstorms. The upside is that the
heavy rains are giving us confidence that we don't have any deck leaks!

Fay and I are now moved into a rented house for two weeks, letting the
yard work on the boat while we prepare for the christening party on
Saturday and seeing all of our friends who are making the trek to
Maine. We'll post some pictures of the party and the almost finished
boat next week.

Dawn is breaking

Dawn is breaking and we can the see the light! A variety of issues
have been addressed and we think the important ones have been
resolved. We're looking forward to getting on board next week and
seeing her entirely put together for the first time!

Always darkest before...

The proverb says "It's always darkest before the dawn". Since our
joyous launch things have gone steadily downhill. We are in the midst
of a major dispute with the builder, the original delivery date has
come and gone, and several systems designed by Lyman Morse are working
well below our expectations. Furuno has also fallen far short of
their promises, delivering buggy software, or in some cases no
software at all, which now has us scrambling to create an alternative
navigational solution.

Our hope is that the second half of the proverb will hold up and the
dawn will arrive, illuminating a situation that is not as bleak as it
appears today.

Aspirations

We aspire to park our naked butts on a secluded beach and look out across the calm, warm waters of a tropical lagoon (suitably covered with sun screen of course). Pretty much like Paul and Gina Rae of New Zealand, seen here admiring their Hylas 44 Solace in the Tuamotu's while sipping a nice cold Heineken.

New blog, updated look, I think it's fixed

We've changed our blog system so that we'll be able to email in entries while traveling. It took some work to get it to mesh seamlessly with our older entries, but it now seems to be working.

We also changed the page header and tweaked the colors to simplify the layout.  We hope you like the new look!

First Days

I've added a full report with lots of pictures of the

First Days

.

Crash! Splash! We're launched!

The last two days have been almost overwhelming. In 48 hours we went from being tucked into a corner of a huge building, masked in cardboard, brown paper, plastic wrap and all manner of protective coverings to a sparkling white hull floating in the Maine sunlight. She was launched yesterday before a crowd of several hundred.

The launch is (was) fully covered in the

Village Soup

. Unfortunately they archive their articles after two weeks and only provide access to paid subscribers, but this is the photo they ran to lead the story.

Even though we've spent 3 years on the design and making hundreds of individual decisions, the overall result is more beautiful than we could ever have imagined. We'll post some pictures of the interior in a few days.

Today, the mast was stepped and tomorrow we will bend on the sails. The first sail is Monday.

We've got much more to report, and we'll try to add a more complete report soon!

Updated network diagram

I updated the navigation and communications network diagram in the systems section, here.

Non-skid applied

The non-skid went down last weekend. It's got a bit of gray in it which is visible in this picture, but not so obvious in these others. You have to look closely to see the glossy / slick areas at the edge of the deck and around hatches and hardware that show where the non-skid was not applied. We only used a bit of color because moving away from white quickly causes the deck to absorb heat which is something we'd like to avoid in the tropics.

Getting close!

The launch is now just 10 days away and most of the details are coming together. The main electrical panel has been fitted as you can see in this picture. The non-skid was applied last weekend so now the painting is complete. This week the push pit, pulpit, stanchions and lifelines will be fitted. The door to the aft head has been hung, and most of the headliner panels are completed. The mast is also finished and is on it's way to Maine. We'll be there next week for the big event!

Wow! Looking very good.

Lots of visible progress last week. The windows were fitted into the dodger, more deck hardware was mounted and they boxed in the ring frame so they can mount the headliner. Last weekend the bottom was painted. Three coats of Pettit Vivid white bottom paint. The bottom looks very fair! And most dramatically, Peter applied the graphics and name to the quarter sections.

Giving her the boot (stripe)

The boot stripe went on last weekend, a real finishing touch. This weekend the hailing port (Kingstown, St. Vincent) will be applied to the transom, and the New Morning logo will be applied to the quarters. The final painting will be the non-skid on the deck in about two weeks.

The refrigerator / freezer boxes are also almost ready for installation.

She's painted

Wow! What a difference. Gleaming white with no ripples. A stainless cap will be placed on the rub rail just below the toe rail. More deck hardware going down now. The bottom will also be painted white so it's more obvious when there is growth and the bottom needs cleaning.

Navigation and Communcation systems

I added a little information about these systems, but nothing about why. For now, the Nav-Comm page will give you some idea what the systems will look like.

Interior Design

Added a page on the interior design. How it came to be, what we chose and some of the unique details.

New and improved logo!

There it is, up in the top left corner of the page. Smoother waves, crisper text, same funky sun. Appearing soon on the port and starboard quarters of New Morning! Our thanks to Peter Achorn, who spends most of the year designing and applying graphics for fire trucks.

Home stretch

Last week was the last trip to Maine before the launch on May 15. Visible progress is coming fast now.

The deck was painted last weekend and really transformed the look of the boat.

No longer covered in flat gray primer, she's begun the transformation to gleaming white yacht. The hull will be painted this weekend. Lyman Morse normally works Monday -Thursday, then the painters come in on Friday and Saturday.

With the deck painted the riggers began to mount deck hardware. My favorite so far is the Nomen folding cleats. You can see one on the port quarter, along with lots of new pictures on the Putting it Together page.

The pictures really don't do justice to the progress. Pieces move in and out of the boat frequently as the individual craftsman build a section. Then when completed and installed, they are immediately hidden behind layers of cardboard or paper. There is a lot of finished work behind the cardboard in the pictures. The electricians and mechanics even move pieces in and out of the boat, though much of their work is done in place as you can see on the photo page.

Fay's sister Evy Rogers created two unique and stunning table tops for the salon. They are original designs etched in aluminum. The piece shown here will be on the inboard side of the settee.

The nav station has been built and the frames for mounting the electronics are now in place (outboard panel shown here).

The electronics will be mounted in a piece of black formica, in turn mounted to an aluminum frame. The aluminum frame is hinged to allow the entire panel to swing down and provide easy access to the various connections. Mounting to generic black formica means that as instruments are changed and updated over time it will be easy to source the panel material and maintain the same look on both panels. This is much more flexible than the teak panels on the Swan which were difficult to source and expensive to purchase.

Christening Party - August 9th

Added some travel and planning information for the Christening Party.

Mark your calendar!

Great trip to Lyman Morse this week. The boat is coming along really nicely with great progress in almost every area. The hard dodger was glued and glassed down last week and this really transforms the look of the boat, as well as being a nice step towards completion. Finished joinery was hidden behind cardboard and protective paper, but underneath it was clear that there is a lot of very nice looking wood furniture. The electrical system is coming along nicely, portions of the autopilot were mounted, etc., etc.

Even more exciting was that JB set May 15 for our launch date. When the project started in early 2005 the target was spring of 2008 so it's a real accomplishment for everyone involved in this project to be in this water this May. So mark your calendars, on May 15th she'll be in the water!

Fuel system

I've added the fuel system description to the Systems section.

More progress

We're moving forward quickly as our goal of being in the water by May 1 is fast approaching. The hard dodger is being glued and glassed into place this week. The detail work around the helm stations has been finished and they have been primed, ready for painting.

The picture at the left shows a plinth for the clutches, and another plinth for the winch. The compass will be set into the mound and it is flanked by sheet bins.
The picture on the right shows the chain pipe take takes chain from the windlass to the chain locker. The windlass will be mounted roughly where you see the green tape.

A couple more joinery pictures were added here.

Solar panels

Today they started

installing the solar panels on the hard dodger. Joe, the guy in the blue sweatshirt, found that we could orient them as you see and reduce the wiring difficulty. The wiring will enter a channel in the dodger along either outside edge and then down the forward frames and into the boat. It's pretty exciting to see starting to be installed! The dodger is going to be complete fairly soon.

Dodger is painted

The painted dodger was lowered onto the boat late this afternoon.

It's the first piece of the boat to be fully painted and it looks beautiful. The exterior is a high gloss white and the interior has a matte finish. The handholds, inside and out feel very solid and look great.

Because it inhibits the steady flow of workers in and out of the boat, the dodger will only be on the boat for a day or so to check out some wiring channels and double check the location of the lights. Then it will be removed and they will begin installing the solar panels and related wiring. In 4-6 weeks it will return to the boat to be glassed in place before the deck is painted.

More pictures in the Deck and Dodger section of the photos.

Interior resolved?

We think we have the interior issues, the inch here, inch there, finally resolved. These 3D renderings give you a pretty good idea how it ended up. On the left you see the port side of the salon. The big thing missing here is the salon table which will make all this look much smaller than the wide open look it has now.

The black "TV" will actually be a 30" Apple monitor for watching movies, getting the big picture when we're planing a route, and enjoying Fay's photography. To the right is the starboard side of the salon. The key items are here are the two chairs, our vantage point for watching the big monitor, reading, lounging etc

We've also spent a lot of time on the "watch station". This is the forward end of the port side bench in the cockpit. Snug up under the dodger, it will be where we spend a lot of time on watch.

The electronics here will include a radar / plotter, autopilot controller and VHF radio. This unit rotates up out of the deck on the port side of the companionway, but of course well under the dodger. It won't actually rotate up as high as is shown here, the bottom of the display will sit at deck level so it doesn't block our visibility out the windows. Standing watch still involves watching the horizon and not just the display.

A couple of pictures of the bow roller from earlier this month are now in the Construction photos.

The game of inches goes on, and on, and on...

Way behind on posting. Went to Maine, came back and been buried in the details ever since. As the build progresss the pace of decisions has picked up quite a bit.

A lot of time was spent on adjustments to the galley upper cabinets to accommodate the microwave and acheive the proper asethic. Two somewhat obscure factors, a 1" reveal (area of wood between the top of the cabinet door and the underside of the deck) at the aft bulkhead, and the height of the microwave, were pretty much the determining factors for the opening of the dish locker, height of the top of the nav station and height of the electrical panel. At least if we wanted to maintain a consistent line throghout without out a lot of bumping up and down. After several days of back and forth we acheived what we hope

will be a very consistent and pleasing line from the aft bulkhead in the galley all the way through the nav station. The cardboard above the galley counter shows the previous plan, and the green string shows the revised design. Much of the change was to make sure we could easily get dishes into the dish locker so we would never have to dry a plate!


The electronics are also starting to be introduced to the mix. We spent some time on the layout of the switch panel on the starboard side of the companionway. This panel will control all the on deck lighting, cockpit lighting and navigation lights.

On the port side of the cockpit we're creating a "watch station" which will have the radar / chart plotter, remote microphone for the VHF radio, and a remote control for the autopilot. The cardboard mockup shows how the radar / plotter will look in the "up" position, the VHF microphone and autopilot remote will mount just inboard of the display. The whole thing will drop down into the deck when not in use. This unit will project into the space above the inboard counter in the galley, so we're working on pushing it further inboard and making it a little shallower to reduce the impact on the space above that counter. A 1" adjusment in one direction, 2" in another, pretty soon we've spent six hours to move something a couple of inches. That's how the days go in Thomaston.


I'm now spending a week of each month at Lyman Morse in Maine and probably even more time in April as we get ready to hit the water in May. After three years of this project being mostly an abstraction on paper we will soon have a real boat in the water!