Water, water everywhere. And not a drop to drink!

Today we had one of our plastic potable water tanks repaired. It cracked some time back so we have been doing without this 100 gallon tank, surviving on our meager 50 gallons tank, waiting for the guy to pencil us in. Amazing! The guy put both of his long skinny arms into one little 8 inch diameter access hole and was still able to see inside to do the repair. Without removing the tank so they can weld inside and out, they can't warranty the work. Hmmm. $300. Let's hope it gets us through a few more years. Removing that tank essentially means demolishing the entire main salon. It can all come out piece by piece, but it would be one heck of a job. For those of you who are the praying kind, please feel free to add us to your list.

Random Sailing Pics

Here's some miscellaneous photos taken while sailing with family. Darling C's parents and nieces on one day sail. Daughter K enjoying the view on Father's day of this year. Some dear friends joining us for a rough and windy day.

"But where does the baby sleep?" they all ask.

If we get around to taking a better picture of the built-in crib, I will post it. But it's pretty incredible so I thought I should put some visuals up. You can almost see it around my expanding belly in one photo(eight days before due date). Then you can see the make-shift mobile and the dresser drawers in the next. The final shot shows a pretty complete view of the set up although you can't see the storage compartment and toy drawers below the bed. This crib is located in the main salon. We converted a four foot bench that is across from the dinette and directly aft of the entrance to our v-berth/master stateroom. One might think we were planning ahead in our initial construction of this perfect little space. She's still sleeping there, 2 years later. But the aft cabin is coming along nicely. Just need to find some time to decorate and tidy.

Not the Atlantic... And no Grace to be found anywhere!

It's an older shot but since hubby is leaving this up to me, I thought I might try to embarass him a little. We anchored out from a little beach with a few friends and their boats and had a little picnic. Darling C decided to try a dive from the bowsprit. When a friend noticed, she told him to wait until she got her camera. Well, the wait was just long enough for him to take stock of just how high out of the water this bowsprit really is. Not one to back down, he decided he must dive after all. But it seems his couraged was dampened just enough to affect his grace. Looks more like he got pushed in or fell off, don't you think?

Piercey family sailing day

Since hubby hasn't gotten around to updating the building photos, I thought I'd add in some sailing pics. Here's two of my brothers, taking turns checking out the view from the bowsprit. What an incredible day of sailing. Light winds but enough to keep our 45,000 lbs dinghy moving. Not too fast though. One brother managed to dive (yes dive, not simply jump) from the bowspit, and swim back to the ladder amidship without too much effort. You can probably guess which brother based on the photos here.

Johnny, eat your heart out!

Master Stateroom

Here you can see the storage compartments in the forward stateroom. They are replicated on the other side.

Pilot House Companionway

This is the pilot house companion way ladder. The ladder at the aft entrance is the same but without non-skid strips applied. The cut-out hand-holds don't go down as far on the aft ladder. We put them lower on this one to aid with climbing up into the pilot house.

Galley - Aft

Here's the galley, looking aft

Galley - Forward to Main Salon

From this angle you can see the galley (a little more finished than in the previous shot) and just a bit of the L-shaped settee on the port side just aft of the v-berth. A window in the v-berth wall allows better ventilation.

Pilot House - Steering

Here's the inside steering station, electrical panels, and instrument panel. There's still a lot more finishing work to be done here.

Galley - Under construction

We put the galley in the walk through on the port side. It's open to the pilot house which is great when we're cooking to let heat and smells escape.

The Head

Just aft of the bench/crib we put in the head. The tub is from an RV that a friend was retrofitting. He was generous enough to donate it to our project.

Comfy couch

Just aft of the V-berth, on the strbrd side, we built this 4' bench with a wide seat that would make it a comfortable bench to lounge on with a book. Somewhere in the back of our minds I guess we always knew it was perfectly sized for a crib.

Master Stateroom - centre lying bed

In our master stateroom, we built a centre lying bed. It is queen size but the corners have been cut away to allow for the shape of the hull forward and to make it easier to navigate our way around it at the bottom.

The dancefloor

With the floors completed, we felt like we had a dance floor in place. It was a little overwhelming to see this empty space and know we had yet to build everything we would need.

Water and diesel tanks

After the boat was gutted, we installed the water tanks and black water tank. We kept the original steel diesel tank. Here the floors are lifted so you can see the tanks

Introducing - Atlantic Grace

Here is Atlantic Grace. She is a 40' Bruce Roberts Spray replica built in steel. We have gutted and rebuilt the interior on this 22 ton beauty. This is her first sail after the retrofit (90% complete). She sailed remarkably well - pointing decently and getting a fair amount of speed. We have since found that she sails best with all sails up, regardless of the wind speed.

Joshua Slokum's 'Spray'

This is a sketch of the original 'Spray' owned by Joshua Slokum. Mr. Slokum was the first man to sail alone around the world. The Spray was a wooden oyster boat that he modified repeatedly during his circumnavigation.