Selling Calypso!

From building, sailing to sellingcalypso.blogspot.com - The end of a great project for us and the beginning of many adventures for someone else.

sailingcalypso.blogspot.com

As of this week the new blog, www.sailingcalpyo.blogspot.com" will start, I aim for a fairly regular weekly update.

The end of the beginning!

So, the boat show is over - we had hundreds and hundreds of people looking over Calypso. Many were lovers of the Contessa 32, had owned one, or sailed on one or had admired them from afar. We found there were plenty of people who looked rather relieved to be resting their eyes on Calypso's beautiful lines and we were regularly treated to the compliment - "at last, a proper boat".
Lots of people had read about Calypso in the Summer and October issues of Practical Boat Owner . As always, Jeremy was in hot demand from Contessa owners past and present and he and Fiona's encyclopaedic memory of boat names and owners came in handy on lots of occassions. "Ah yes, I remember, Triador, 1974 - he was a hairdresser"! Calypso's green features created a lot of interest from the general public and the press - we even had the style editor of the Shanghai Times on board!
On Sunday, we took an order for another new boat and on Monday, Kit and I had our first sail on Calypso. We motored silently off the pontoon under the proud gaze of Graeme Hawksley from Hybrid Marine - very cool. My sister, who has been looking after our children for the boat show, came too. It was her first trip in a sailing boat - and she took to it like a duck to water, steering the boat upwind in 25 knots of breeze. It was a beautiful end to one hell of a project. Thank you for following - and thank you to all those who've helped to make it happen. Of course, it's not really over, we've still got to put the hybrid system through its paces, and give a proper trial to all the gear we've put on the boat. There's a plan to make a video of cooking at sea with the guys from GN Espace, (I thought cooking with kids at sea could be fun - or at least, chaotically amusing)! So, next stop www.sailingcalypso.blogspot.com - see you there!
Thank you!

Star of the show!

The Southampton Boat Show is in full swing and Calypso is arguably the star of the show! Well, maybe I'm a little biased but we certainly have had more than our fair share of visitors. People are really interested in all the green features - I reckon we've definitely saved a fair few rainforest trees by converting people to Kebony, and the electric drive on the Hybrid engine is being put through its paces, as we motor back and forward on our mooring in stealth mode - it really is unbelievable quiet. There 's a lot to show to people with so many different project partners (see list on the left for links) but it has been great fun and immensely satisfying to show it all off to the public and the industry, not to mention meeting so many people who appreciate and understand what a great boat the Contessa 32 is. Today was the fifth anniversary of The Green Blue so I went to the party at the RYA tent - it was great to hear the head honchos of the RYA and the BMF embracing so warmly into their bosom what must have been viewed by some as a bit of a whacky add-on when it first started.