We tried very hard to have a custom watertank made on Tortola.  I made a template and took it to a friend - after 2 months of calling and waiting, our friend said he wasn't going to have materials to make it so he suggested a friend of his.  We took out template to this friend so held onto it for a month before wanting to charge us about $2000 and no idea of when he would finish it.  Love the islands.

We got on the phone with a tank manufacturer in Minnesota.   After taking a few measurements we determined that our tank was in their warehouse.  The next day it was in the mail to us.  The tank arrived a week later - tank cost $400 and shipping was another $200.  Such a deal.  

So, Sasha gathered some plumbing fittings and tools and set to work making more holes in the boat.  

 

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I have posted here about most of the boats that are nominated for the the European boat of the year contest with some exceptions, boats that for a reason or other I don't like or that piss me because they could be great and become short for some reason.

That is the case of the OVNI 52 Evolution that has a great fast hull and screams for a deep swing keel with all the ballast on it, as a way of making it lighter, with more RM allowing the full exploration of that hull's speed potential. Instead it has an under-exploited hull and is a center-border as all the others on the market, with the ballast inside the boat.

The Southerly 535, abandoning the nice profile of their anterior boats assume the shape of a Oyster.

Even the denomination (535) is similar to the ones used on Oyster. The Southerly brand and style deserved better.


The Pointer 25 besides being inexpensive and relatively well designed has nothing special or innovative.

The same about the Wauquiez Centurion 57, except being cheap. Nothing new neither particularly attractive. The style is dated without being classic and only the running rigging is interesting.
The Moody 54DS I admit it is a personal thing: I was never able to like that mixture between a cat a motor sailer and a sailing boat. I know that it sails relatively well but I hate the looks, the big cabin and all the windage it will be responsible for and besides with all those vertical "windows" the boat should be incredibly hot on the Med and Caribbean where it is going to be used most of the time. I know that it has a powerful AC system (and a big generator) to solve that problem, but to me it seems  just wrong to do things that way.

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This is the largest of the boats designed for Northwind Yachts of Barcelona, Spain.  The 65' was designed in 2001.  Like the other Northwind models we designed the hull, rig, appendages, general arrangement, and engineered the structure.  The styling was provided by Northwind.  2 boats were built to this design before Northwind folded although we have since learned that at least one bastardized copy at 72' length overall was delivered.

Here's a look at her shape.

Here are the plans.

Principal Dimensions

LOA 65'-0"

LWL 56'-7"

Beam 17'-5"

Draft 7'-3"

Displacement 72,545 lbs

Ballast 24,993 lbs 

Sail Area 2,007 sq ft

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Teddy, the welder, made a visit to our boat yesterday to look at and start planning projects.  I have a list of about ten separate projects I'd like him to get done for me.  

Project 1:  fab and weld a ventilation system that will mount above the oven/ stove area.  The green thing in the photo is an eight inch inline blower fan.  It moves a lot of air.  Now we just need duct and a vent cut in the side of the boat above the fan and a proper size and shape hood under the fan.

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Well, this is it.
Over the past fifteen months Sasha and I have been working our tails off to get the boat back in the water.  Is the boat done?  Heck no!  But we are ready to get out of the yard and onto the water.

Those are hot pink flip-flops.  

As we motored away from Tortola there were lots of small rain showers which made for some spectacular rainbows.  Just like Noah and his arc, I'm hoping this is a good omen.  

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