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.