Our new boat is progressing. It’s frustrating for us, as she is taking shape in the Pacific North West while we are firmly planted here on the East Coast. We feel so removed, so irrelevant. The crew at Tomco/American Tug are doing their best to keep us “on the team” but it’s still hard.
The mold pops away from the hull. Birth!
Which is why we hunger for every word we can get from the west coast, and especially every picture that hits our inbox. This week it was a big moment that came our way. The hull popped out of the mold. We don’t know precisely when this happened, but the photos arrived on Tuesday, October 18, so we assume it happened then or the Monday the 17th.. Continue reading We Have A (Complete) Hull!→
The hull, which is built in two halves, has been sprayed with our gel coat. The color is Sea Shell Green.
Here the two hull molds are being prepped with mold release.
As we have mentioned before, we would have liked a handsome dark color but we have been through the maintenance issues before with dark gel coat and did not want to do it again. When we scanned the spectrum of lighter colors, we ultimately settled on this light gray-green that started out as a custom AwlGrip color for Shelter Island Runabouts and has expanded from there. It’s perhaps not a masculine look for a chunky, business-like tug hull, be we think it will work well for us. Since we are sticking with the same name we have had for all our boats, ESMERALDE, we are sort of stuck with some kind of green!
Today we received a picture of the deck and superstructure just out of the mold. Only one pic, not much detail, but it’s something. We’re not even certain when it came out of the mold, although we assume it was yesterday-ish. We hope for better images and construction reporting as the project trundles along.
Meanwhile, we are still hammering out a lot of smaller details. The Newport Boat Show is coming up this weekend and the East Coast Yacht Sales demo boat will be on display at the show. I suspect we will be spending a lot of time there.
The boat is no longer just a glimmer in our eyes. Construction is under way.
The build was originally supposed to start in late September, but we got the call last week that said “Send money!” It seems Tomco has moved us up from Hull #14 (which was actually hull #13, but they accommodated our request to name it Hull #14) to Hull #12. Not sure why this happened, but I’m guessing it’s because we’re a real live buyer, while the original slot for Hull #12 was probably for a dealer who doesn’t yet have a live buyer. Continue reading It Has Begun.→
As the construction start date for the new American Tug approaches, we’re trying to stay ahead of the decision-making requirements so we don’t get caught by surprise and have to make uninformed decisions on the fly without thinking them through properly.
There are a lot of elements on the boat that we want to get right. Some are mechanical, some structural, some practical, and some…comfort and aesthetic. Continue reading Boat Decisions – Color Palettes→
All things fun (and tasty) in the life of the Beards
BruceBeard.com 