1.26.2011

Land Yacht

While in Santa Cruz, I spent some time helping my brother replace a holding tank in his 67 Land Yacht.


Lot's to learn from the design that went into the early airstreams

1.24.2011

A visit to the spar builder

Flew to California to meet with Ballenger Spars  who will prepare the mast for this cat.  Follow the link to see their work.

http://www.ballengerspars.com/index.html  

1.23.2011

Grandaddys' hand saw

Here's the last set of the multiple panels required to build out the main interior seating.












If I planned to build ten more 44ft. performance cruising catamarans, It would be worth it to produce 3D computer renderings of the interior then have all the panels CNC cut. However, since this is the only Ocean going cruising cat I will ever build in this lifetime, it made more since to grab the foam and go at it in the design-build manner. These days it's easy to create virtual living spaces on a computer, but nothing can beat using your hands to arrive at a configuration that just feels right. Sometimes technology is a bit over rated and it's good to know when and when not to use it.......I guess I could have used an etch-a- sketch to draw the panels, used a digital camera to capture the image, convert the image to a .dxf file that could be converted to machine tool language that could control a $500,000.00 water jet cutter but I just used my Grandaddys' hand saw instead.