For the past year Alan has been living in this wonderful funky little cottage, which is a stone's throw from the B&B Yacht Designs Workshop. You can really get a sense of it's size seeing it next to his neighbor's house. That's his cottage to the right.
One room living with no running water. There is a nice little outhouse, but it's cold in the winter. He has a refrigerator, microwave, toaster oven, and camp stove, and a small baseboard heater. There is a small closet like area in the back with a prefab shower, but it just drains though the floor into a bucket under the house. Showers are taken by heating water through the Mr Coffee maker, then adding additional water to get it the right temperature, get in the shower and go. It's a bit crowded when there are visitors. We sleep on a blow-up mattress on the floor. But it's affordable and incredibly convenient. The cabin has been quite perfect for Alan, who had spent much of the previous year living on a 40' sailboat with 3 others.
The B&B Workshop is a very busy and active boat building shop. Graham and Carla Byrnes have been so generous and kind to Alan and our family. Of course we've known for years just how wonderful they are, as Graham is a fellow WaterTriber, and the designer of our Core Sound 20, the Dawn Patrol.
Alan has worked for Graham (above in his office, the back left corner of the shop) for about a year. He has made his shop and tools available and given Alan's the time he needs to finish the Mosquito. No stranger to last minute builds for races, Graham built a wooden trimaran for himself in order to race in the 1988 Worrell 1000 which was a 1000-mile offshore ocean race for small multi-hull boat (<20') from Florida to Virginia. That race is the now Tybee 500 (500 miles from Miami to Tybee Island, Georgia) which Alan also raced for a few years in a Nacra 20 high performance beach cat. I could go on and on about Graham and his winning records, most recently with his Core Sound series of boats, and his Everglades Challenge 22, he's one of the best in the business of design and small boat plans and kits.
Graham has 2 shops. The newest houses a single project: the 45 ft catamaran they are custom building. The other shop is B&B's multi-project workshop that is used for design, R&D, production, and "everything else"; it is filled with drums of epoxy, huge racks for wood storage, the CNC machine, Graham's office, a wood burning stove for heat, workbenches, and tools galore (big and small). This weekend it also held our Trimaran hull and amas, the 33' mast, a Mandy Skiff that Beth (Graham's daughter) is doing the finish work on, KiwiBirds kayak, and even a coffin being made (Graham regularly makes coffins for the Jewish community in the New Bern area).
I took a few pictures (phone shots) of the shop below. It looks a bit of a mess, certainly packed full. Evidently there is some rhyme and reason, as Graham and Alan both seem to know when something is out of place.
I know you would much rather hear about how the boat build is going. Alan had planned to blog during the build, but the building goes on into the night most nights, and I haven't had any time for photos or blogging. I'm back home, so here's a quick update.... The big pieces are done! Alan's got the ama decks and ama side strips for trampoline lacing on, Paul's got the seat in the front cockpit in, the cockpit covers and hatches are done. The mast is cleaned up. This week they'll get the water stays on, the aka/ama attachments completed, the mast on, and start putting on all the hardware. When I get there next weekend, the trimaran should be outside and whole :). I'll work on sewing up the trampoline while they finish the rudder and tiller. This boat should be in the water soon, and with no time left to spare. In the meantime, I'm keeping busy being in charge of gear, food, packing, and routing.
1 comment:
Nice update. It sounds like things are coming together. In normal Watertribe style, much of the work is getting to the beach, but I know you guys will make it.
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