underside

simplicity's bottom side is finished. Although under four pads needs to be done, but we are callin it done.. Now comes the part of putting everything back on her, inside and out, and finish the little things that can be done anytime, but still needs to be done, ya know, the dodahs. She looks absolutely beautiful, the captain does good work. We are ten days away from splash day, not that we are counting down or anything. The captain is mounting the tiller, getting the rudder in place, checkin batteries, n that fun stuff. The only thing I can think of is sailing. I wanna go now. Just the other day we received 8 more charts of the San Juan islands, so guess what we are going to be doing, every night when the sun goes down. Our dream is starting to take shape, we are right on schedule. bunkmate.

almost ready

Well the captain has been looking for a weather window so he can paint simplicity's bottom side. but i guess thats part of sailing. we have been stocking her with alla her inside stuff, clothes are almost ready to go in,i think she knows whats going on, i caught her smiling the other day, and im not sure if shes winking too. i think she's as excited as we are for sailing in the San Juans, Washington. We have 2 weeks till we splash at Oak Harbor. Bunkmate

Hmmm ... Pretorien maybe ???

We have a front runner for our cruising boat, the Wauquiez Pretorien 35.
At this point our intended criteria is something between 34 to 39 feet as all associated fees go up greatly at the 40 foot mark, and must be a very seaworthy solid boat that sails well to weather (up wind) as we are not sure of our cruising area at this time, with adequate room to move about as well as good storage. Some other musts would include very little woodwork topside to cut down on maintenance, roomy well laid out navigation station, aft cockpit, adequate head room throughout the cabin to stand upright, a quarter birth near the helm so bunkmate can hail the captain at times of need on her watch, and a usable galley with plenty of storage and counter top space. Oh yeah, under $85,000 ... and must be sexy baby yaaa.
While some work will be needed refitting any boat we get for extended cruising we would like to not have a complete project boat. These boats hold there value well and are the kind of boat that you just don't see many ran down as they are built well and age well, and have a great following of pride of ownership in all of the boats we have seen to this point.
The bottom picture is of one currently for sale in Seattle.

P.S. We have decided to back up the launch date and first vacation of the sailing season to be sure mother nature gives us the warm days we need to do the bottom paint and barrier coat as well as get Simplicity ship shape.

Capt. C