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!