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.