485 Progress

Monday & Tuesday August 3^rd & 4^th – We left the Edmonds dock at 7:47am headed north to La Conner on the Swinomish Channel.  La Conner is where our new American Tug 485 is being built and we were super excited to see the progress.  These guys and gals construct an incredible quality boat, built right here in the USA.

At 1:05pm traveling 39.88nm we arrived at the American Tug docks.  With the new boat on the way we need to get our existing boat sold – hopefully just after we get back from this trip.  Our friend and yacht broker Steve Scruggs is going to come by and take pictures for the sale, so we all worked together to wash and clean up the boat for the pictures.

After the photo session we went to dinner at the La Conner Brewing Co – Our favorite spot in La Conner with the very best beer and pizza.

Tuesday the 4^th – We met with American Tug and got to see all the progress.  Building a boat like this is quite a long process – about 8 months – and we are about 2 months in.  Our new boat is 48’ long but the manufacturer only has a mold for a 43 footer.  To make it longer they have to cut the hull and deck in half, then add 5’ to the middle.  It’s a complicated process that doesn’t sound right, but its done all the time in boat building and creates a hull that’s just as strong.  You can see in the pictures the hull has been cut and filled in but the deck (white with forward windows cut out) has not been cut yet.  They’ve also started to build the master stateroom and head module.  This, along with a few other modules, gets built outside the boat then placed in before the deck goes on. We spent a couple hours going over a bunch of decisions that need to be finalized and made a lot of progress.

At 1:00 we left La Conner and set a course to Fishermen Bay on Lopez Island.  Steve (the yacht broker) took some action shots of our boat while underway as we cruised up the Swinomish Channel.  We had a nice cruise around the north end of Anacortes, across Rosario Strait, through Thatcher Pass, and around the north end of Lopez but then it started to get really windy.

We arrived at 4:42pm traveling 21.92nm and set our anchor in the bay.  The wind was blowing to 23 knots in the bay so we made sure our anchor was set well.  Its always a little stressful sleeping at night anchored in that kind of wind!  Dinner at the Islander restaurant was was just OK.  The dinghy ride back to the boat for the night was a little wet with spray in all the wind.

Trip Log –  113.75nm