Thursday, January 31, 2008

A real boat

Ok, today we visited the yard again and our boat is becoming boatlike... if you understand what I mean. Suddenly there is this huge boat and now the dimensions are starting to feel right.

For the latest images, click on this website:
Ataraxia


We have a lot of decisions to make, will email Tad as well, since the builders are going to start with the interior, yeah, the tanks and the floor. Our funds are disappearing rapidly, so we will need to decide what can be done while in the yard and what we must do ourselves later. In two weeks we will go again to the yard and then have a long discussion about various details. Am intending to go next week any way, just since I'm really getting curious and excited!

Bye

Monday, January 21, 2008

Decisions, decisions

OK, I managed to solve today a long outstanding issue at work: so our budget is now from nil to existing. It will still not allow us to finish the yacht completely, but at least it should allow us to live in it and work on it in the next few years. Now only to sell a few more boats, then it can go quickly.

Hope to drop in at the yard on Wednesday, together with David, after another meeting in that area. It will be nice if he gets interested as well, financially seen, so that I can actively market the yacht through him. Will have to wait with marketing until there is more that can be shown and further agreements are made between Tad, the builders and me.

Been looking at colourschemes the whole weekend; it is so hard to imagine how a yacht should look like, but ok, it is a fun thing to do as well.

Am busy getting quotations for items ranging from a matrass, fenders untill portholes and a sink.
Hope to see most of you at the club this Thursday and watch out for me if you're on Chappies at 6 in the morning, you will probably see me cycling past, since this is my new training ground for my Argus Challenge.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

New Year Spring clean

yip, suddenly this blog is very empty: I decided to delete all the negative muck and blahblah from the old blog and start afresh.

Since the beginning I had to face the fact that building a boat is a complete different story than selling or buying a used, or new ready built yacht. In our case the thing is as well that nobody else has built a yacht like this before. I must admit, most of the time I have no clue as what is going on and why something is so important. People I ask explain it a lot in a way like I should have known. Hellooo, no guys, my interests as a woman are in an entirely different category. Suddenly I have to face the consequences of a lamination schedule, heard of it and got the basics and just as I think, aha, something else is happening. And when I start to talk about a subject I think I can talk about, they say that that is still far away, oops. Yes, unusual enough for me, I feel ignorant. Add to this the stress of my very busy work and you have the perfect recipe for doom, oh and a boss, who pays me, but only small amounts at a time adds greatly to the stress as well.

I had to agree with the fact that, in our case, building a new yacht, unfinished, in stead of buying an old second hand, could be just within our budget and we would be better of, since this design has all the things we find important. Peter was more into the technical and I liked the queen-size bed idea, large open galley, pilothouse and extra salon in the aft. Yes, especially since we won't go cruising shortly, but living on her, I long to sit in the pilothouse with a cup of coffee and see the South Easter howling around me... We lived on a sailing yacht for 5 years and were always in the cellar. With the winds in the Summer here in Cape Town, it is very frustrating if the sun shines and you can't sit outside, or look outside. Going cruising is still a far, very far plan.

Anyway, this is the new year clean, before Christmas we had a good meeting with the builders and we try to get all our noses pointing in the same direction, thank you Piet for your patience. We will have to avoid to start accusing one another and instead work together on the project. In December everybody was thoroughly frustrated and disappointed with the lack of progress and the holidays were a good break for all of us.

Peter went to see them this morning and hope to see the pictures this evening of our baby. According to the builders, they should be able to turn the hull the end of next week! When that job is done and she's in a cradle, we then have to decide the places for the interior layout, I understood. In this stage it is still very difficult for me to realize what is going on, so I hope that this will improve if we make more progress.

Happy new year everyone, please sent us instead of good wishes one, or more of the following items: s.s. screws, bolts, cables, batteries, calorifier, matrass, cushions, paint etc. We can sent you the whole list upon request ;)