We had a wonderful Christmas Holiday in Whistler, BC with my family. The skiing was incredible. We had a couple of clear, icy days to start, but then the clouds rolled in, bringing with them several inches of fresh snow.
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| Apres Ski at Merlin's. Clearly, we're not having any fun. |
Now, we're in Salt Lake City. I'm writing from our little house on 1300 South. Yep. We're renting a place, I have a couple of jobs, working at Cucina Deli and Caffe Niche, and we're settling down for a little while. Hard to believe, I know.
But while we're here....
Over the last few years Beth and I have had an awesome time, climbing, surfing, traveling and just avoiding work and responsibility. We now feel the need to do something not just for the instant or short term satisfaction. I think this is a natural progression of people our age. Most of my generation are starting serious careers or having children, which is great, because that is what they want. Beth and I are not ready for either of those options, so we have decided to fill our desire to be productive another way. We will be building sailboat. This is a dream that both of us have talked about for years. The talks have been getting more and more serious and now it is time for us to start what will be the biggest undertaking of our lives, thus far.
I designed this boat while living on Bainbridge with the help of my then boss Dave Sutter. I have been revising the design since then and have come up with what you see here. The boat is not designed for speed, not to say it will be the slowest boat around, but it certainly will not be the fastest. It is designed for comfort and everything in yacht design is a trade of (comfort for speed). I compromised again while looking at the ease of construction vs beauty. The hull looks as though it is round and flowing above the waterline, but below it has hard bends that you don't see most of the time. This will make much of the boat fast and easy to build, but the bow and stern will be a little slower to allow the curves to be formed. It will be built of plywood covered on the outside with fiberglass and epoxy. I could go on and on, but the boat amounts to a sturdy classic looking cruiser.
The boat is Cutter rigged, with the staysail directly in front of the mast and the jib farther forward
Having no engine inside opens up enough room to have large aft berth.
This is a remote control model I built of the boat. The boat is built to a scale of 1"=1', so the model is about 35 inches long with the bowsprit.
Here are most of the numbers for the boat.
| LOA (Actual Length) | 29.500 ft | ||
| Beam (Width) | 9.000 ft | ||
| Draft (Depth) | 4' 6" | ||
| Sail Area | 525 Sq Ft. | ||
| Total Displacement | 10701.13 lbs | ||
