The Saga 409 build is drawing to a close so I spend Monday thru Friday in LA finishing off last minute stuff/decisions on the boat. She will be loaded onto a truck next week and I will be in the Bay to unload her and hopefully the owner will have a smile on his face. The boat was taken out of the shed to have the bottom sprayed and the graphics look great on the hull. There is a lot to finish off in the bay – small details always seem to take time.

I had a great time staying with the Leths – family friends who have known my dad since before he married my mum… It has been a great project for me getting to see them every month.

The build of the cruising boat in LA is coming along fast and the owner will have it just in time for Christmas. It has been a long haul for him. We have a few nice customisations that mean the boat doesn’t quite know whether it is meant to be raced or cruised! It is fun learning every day and getting to make small design choices. Off to Sydney tonight.

Some weeks I really love my job as I get to learn so much. I just got back from a week in LA working on the boat build project. It was fun working on all the little customisations we are doing to the boat. Hopefully it will be in the bay area by Christmas. When Westerly works on something they really move fast and the quality of workmanship is high. Unfortunately we had to have the heavy metal toe rail installed as the flush hull deck joint was going to be too expensive. but there are one or two cool little features from race boats on this cruising boat. I know the below picture is not that exciting but it really is for the owner as it shows progress!

A perk of the job is that I get to visit with friends in LA I stay with very old family friends – surrogate parents of mine who live about 15 minutes from the yard. I was also able to visit my friends on Balboa Island down in Newport Beach which is a very cute little village very different from the rest of LA. I met there new son and had a great dinner.

Today I went out on iShares Xtreme 40 which Hugh Styles is skippering. Hugh and I worked together on Yeoman XXXII last year and when he was asked to bring the X40 to the Bay he called Racing Yacht Management to help out with some of the logistics.

The boat arrived in a 40 foot container at the end of February – the hulls mast etc all fits onto a trailer which goes in the container. There is about 2 inches on all sides. The crew built the boat last week  over at Svendsens only needing a crane to put the mast up and launch the boat.

The boat is sponsored by iShares and Hugh has been hired on as skipper see http://www.hughstyles.com/home

I really enjoyed my little sail around the bay. The boat is very fast and when you start flying the hull it is a cool feeling. You can tell that there is a fine line and it can all go tits up very quickly. It was a perfect sunny day on the bay blowing 20-25 knots and we were going the same speed as the wind. I was glad to have my Kokotat drysuit on as although it wasn’t that wet it was cold.

After lunch with the guys at the club of soup to warm the cockles of Hugh’s heart, I took them all to sports basement as they needed thermals. They hadn’t heeded my warning about the temperature at this time of year.

See video below of the boat sailing.

[youtube CHKOK_wNVoQ]

I spent last week down in Santa Ana (LA) working on a 40 foot cruising boat at Westerley Marine. I flew down to Westerley and tried to make some sense of the random parts that were thrown into the boat before it left the old yard. I inventoried the boat, cleaned it up, protected the woodwork that is in the boat and came up with some design ideas to make the beautiful lines of the boat evident. We will not be installing the metal work that makes it look a little like a sports fishing boat! The boat is now all put to bed awaiting a slot in the yard schedule to officially start the finish of the build. Meanwhile I have lots of shopping to do – rudder stocks, bearings, blades, refridgeration compressors, plates, wichard padeyes, masts, booms etc. I also have to put together a picture of how the jigsaw pieces go together as we don’t have many drawing of the boat. Luckily there are 14 completed boats out there I just have to find out how to get in touch with them.

I am lying in my starboard guest cabin after a pretty exhausting week. It started with a Monday night stepping of the rig (finishing at dark 9:30pm) and ended with cleaning the teak until 8:00pm Friday night. We start our work day at 7am and up until this last crazy period of wrapping up we were finishing at 4pm. I decided a 40 hour work week is what life is all about!

For the last week and half since I got back from Mexico I have had a temperature and been really sore. Fever broke last night I woke up drenched in sweat – nice eh!!! Haven’t been sick like that since I can remember last. Last night at 11:30pm the new chef knocked on my door to tell me there was an alarm going off and I had taken Nyquil. Seeing as the varnishers had been in to do the steps up the the pilot house I had to climb out the escape hatch from the crew mess in my PJ’s to get up to the pilot house. Not really a large feat however I don’t know if it is because I am tea total but that nyquil made me feel like I had just been to the knot and shot at KWRW after a large night at the beer tent!

The skipper comes back after 5 1/2 weeks away tomorrow morning at 6:30am and there is a lot to do before we can leave on Tuesday. The bow thruster motor decided to pack it in on Monday so we will most likely have to jury rig it. The hydraulics guy didn’t label the lines right so he has the vang buttons working the halyard tension! Just a few small things that might stop us going sailing! Great project manager I am 🙂 At least the rig is on, the sails are on (mostly), the boat hasn’t sunk at the dock and the white carpets are still white. Looking forward to sailing the Farr 40 in January where there are no bow thruster, furling mains, half halyards with hydraulic rams or lots and lots of teak to clean.