April 16, 2005 – Annie is now officially launched!

Some of you were beginning to wonder if this would ever happen – for that matter, there were times Carol and I wondered if it would ever happen! – but Annie was launched on April 16, 2005. Click here for photos.

March Update

For those of you following boat construction on "Annie", we are progressing, with only 28 days to go. Seems like the list does not get any shorter however. For every major project that is completed it seems like we add 5 little things to the list. The list is getting longer and longer but still there is hope to get her in the water this year.

We are finishing the floors inside. All of the floors or cabin soles on the top deck are done and the only thing that remains on the main deck is the master cabin and hall floors. Then we have to tackle the overhead ceiling panels. We are starting the finish sanding on the floors and varnishing on the top deck. The pilot house floor has about 8 coats or varnish on it and it really looks good. These pictures do nor do it justice, however. All of the floors are various combinations of teak, maple and paduk. Paduk is a bright red wood from South America. The dining room, main salon on the first deck and the galley have inlays of paduk and maple... many little pieces cut and fitted and glued together.

The brass hawse eyes we had cast at a foundry and had to polish them to a shiny finish – all 24 of them.

The 240v, and 120v electrical systems are complete, including the generator installation on the 40 kW and a 6 kW gensets. The 12v panels are on the assembly line at Paneltronics in Florida. The brass mortise locks trims plates and door knobs for all of the interior doors arrived recently and we will begin installation on those on shortly.

Check out the these separate photo galleries below and also here with the very latest photos here and here.

Update, February 19, 2005:

We're getting pretty close. No definite launch date as yet but I think were looking at 4-6 weeks.  We have completed the fuel systems and have fired up both engines. Both generators are installed and running. The interior of the boat is 98% finished. All electronics are going. The only thing really lacking inside is a few more coats of varnish on the cabin soles. We will do that as the very last thing.

The major thing on the list right now is to finish the decks. They need to be caulked. There is a 1/4" seam between each deck plank and that adds up to about 200 tubes of black polyurethane caulk which we affectionately call "Black Death". Each tube does about 17 feet so we have about 3400 feet of deck seams to caulk. We have started caulking small sections as test areas to refine our technique before tackling the major areas. The big problem we face is the weather. Rain  and temperature kill us for a few days each time as the decks have to be completely dry and it has to be 65 degrees or the caulk is like peanut butter. If we can get a week of dry weather we should be able to get it done. After that, its a matter of getting everything ready to move.

It'.s 2.34 nautical miles to the water as the seagull flies. Slightly longer via the pavement but its going to be the longest 2.34 miles of my life. The move is all about logistics, getting everyone in the right place at the right time. The boat is sitting on a trailer made from steel "I" beams. Each I beam has 5 axles under it so there will be 20 tires on the ground. We don't have a clue what the boat weights ...somewhere around 75000 pounds I think but that is a wild guess. That puts us at about 3500 # per tire.

The problem I anticipate is getting the thing to turn corners. The I beams run the length of the boat and the axles are strung out along the beams  so turning corners may be a bit of an issue with the  tires trying to roll off the rims because of side loading in the turns. And the turns are another problem . The streets  in Bacliff are narrow with open ditches. We will have to fill in the ditches with fill dirt and them lay plywood over the dirt so we can make the corners then go back and dig the dirt out of the ditches and take it to the next corner. I think there are only one set of cable and telephone lines we will have to move to get on to the highway. Once we make it on to SH 146 it's a straight shot to the marina with only one more gentle curve to get in there.

Once we get to the boat yard we still have a little work to do. We have to lift the boat off the cradle and block it up on jack stands so we can do the bottom paint and install the props and the zincs. That may take two days. I don't know how far up to bring the bottom paint up as the water line at this point is strictly theorecical. My plan at this point is to make a wild guess about where the WL will be and bring the paint up close to that and then launch her and let her sit in the water for a couple of weeks, fill up the fuel tanks and water tanks and see where the loaded water line is. Then we pull her out of the water and paint the boot stripe and bring up the bottom paint. Further developments will be posted.