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.

Launched!

The day we've all been waiting for. Calypso is where she belongs, in the water! She was launched by Jeremy and Fiona's grandchildren (or most of them). A bottle of finest Gospel Green was smashed very firmly over the bow by Hattie - the eldest grandaughter. Why the beanies?? Well, it's the Calypso connection - they're a tribute to Jacques Cousteau and his Calypso. Work still continues, mast up, sprayhood fitted and final touches completed by an army of workers scurrying over the boat. The Hybrid Marine engine is working perfectly, with futuristic looking buttons embedded into the tiller. Tomorrow she goes up to the Southampton Boat Show - she looks gorgeous, the Kebony deck and toerail is just beautiful - all in all, a very special yacht - well done all of you involved. More soon!

Release the foul!

This is the way forward, it has to be - instead of covering the boat with toxic paint every year or couple of years, you cover the bottom of the boat in a two part paint which is so slippery nothing in the foul family can really get its toes in. This technology is called foul release and is widely used in shipping and by the military. The reason isn't because they are particularly concerned about the environmental impact of putting copper based paint into the sea - although they recognise that legislation will be coming and it will be good to be ahead of the game - no, it's because the fuel savings on boats treated in this way are gargantuan! Calypso is the first yacht to be treated with a new product by Hempel called Hempasil X3 - a four part process including two coats of epoxy, a tie coat and then the X3. Hempel take the application process extremely seriously, we had to employ a Hempel expert for 3 days to oversee the application and a dedicated sprayer with special airless spray equipment came to do the coating. Our 20sq metres seemed like an absolute doddle, as his last spray job had been a ship in a dry dock of 7000sqm! The product is guaranteed for 10 years, and although it works on the principal that anything green slides off when you move at around 7 knots, it should work fine on Calypso. It's so slippery that a simple rub with a sponge on a pole every so often will remove anything determined enough to try to grow on her hull. We are really intrigued to see how it works, and we'll also be trialling an Ultrasonic Antifouling system recently installed into the boat which can be switched on and off. I'll keep you posted on the next blog "Sailing Calypso".

The writing's on the boat!

It may seem like a detail but getting the right colour, font, sizing, positioning for the name took a bit of thinking about. We decided on gold because, although it sounds a bit blingy, (I did take a bit of convincing)! it's traditional and I have to admit it looks really good on a boat with classic lines like a Contessa 32. Trevor the local signwriter is a real artist - and as worked away on Calypso he lamented the fact that he spent less time doing free hand, creative work and more and more time doing transfers on the computer. The rest of Calypso is coming on at a fast pace, blogging will have to increase to a rate of Kit - at least twice a week - as the Boat Show fast approaches - 10th September - (for any one who's interested, and is close enough, we are berth number M502). More soon!

That'll do Kit!

Time I wrestled back the blog from Kit!! Actually, I think he's a natural blogger, I might let him have another go! Well, I'm back from sauntering around in the Alps (you try sauntering with four small boys in tow)! Lots of progress made on Calypso; all the Harken winches and deck gear fitted, the Selden mast has arrived, Darglow propeller fitted. Boxes of Garmin electronics and Imtra LED lights waiting to be fitted next week by Jamie Marley (no pressure)! The Kebony hand rails are gleaming with Le Tonkinois, and Mikey is beavering away varnishing the rest of the removable woodwork in a container outside, away from any fear of dust. Mikey, a professional varnisher, who has worked on yachts like Velsheda, is a little wary of a product like Le Tonkinois, but he's loving the fact that he has a clear head after a day of varnishing. So far, he's quite impressed. Once he sees the finished product, after three coats, I think he'll be a convert!

Saturday night pulling and grinding!

Another one from Kit I'm afraid - Jess is still sauntering around the French Alps with our four little boys. Tomorrow, Jonah and Ini (7 and 9) are going paragliding which has become a bit of a Lane family obsession. I, however, have had a much more down to earth weekend! I think I have mentioned the awesome 17 " feathering prop from Darglow, well, Jeremy and I tried it on today. It is awesome, but.... Our calculations for enlarging the aperture between the rudder skeg and the rudder were a bit optimistic as became clear when we slid the prop onto the shaft. The shaft itself is also a wee bit too long. So, this evening I have been pulling the shaft out of the Aquadrive (thrust bearing flexible coupling) in order to cut an inch or so off tomorrow - followed by rather a lot of grinding (see photo taken with my mobile). As my older brother, Simon, pointed out to his daughter 'boatbuilders love grinding' and it's true that I don't feel like I've had a truly productive day on the boat unless I have put on a decent layer of dust. Tomorrow, I hope to get the shaft and prop back in and the rudder skeg built back up and faired in so it looks just right.

Fitting it all in...

Sorry, I couldn't resist another quick blog before Jess returns on Monday! Graeme (Hybrid Marine) and Jamie (Marley Marine) were here at 8 am this morning to finally decide where the 'brain' of the hybrid will go and also where to fit all the other systems - like the large inverter and displays for the three different electrical systems (240 V AC, 48 V DC and 12 V DC). So far it's looking pretty good with both the main boxes fitting into spaces that look like they have been designed for them - more luck than good judgement. One concern we have is that we are loading up the starboard side of the boat with all this extra gear, including 180 kgs of batteries, and so when we launch Calypso might have a list to starboard. Fortunately, the beautifully made Rheinstrom Y4 head we have fitted weighs in at an impressive 25 kg! And the holding tank is on the port side too - so we may need to keep that topped up!!

Graeme is hot property at the moment as more and more people the benefits of hybrid engines. His latest idea is to set a control system into the end of the tiller which will allow us to control the electric drive almost effortlessly with your thumb. Jeremy immediately saw the comic potential of bringing the boat into a tricky berth without any apparent engine assistance - having all that silent power at your fingertips will definitely open up all sorts of possibilities...

Stealth blogging...

Kit blogging again - I'm getting into the swing of this, Jess will have to wrestle back control of the blog! We are having a productive week as the yard is closed down for it's annual one week summer shut down, so Jeremy can get his head down without constant interruptions. He has taken to parking his Land Rover inside the shed and locking the side door so we can work it doesn't look like anyone is home! We have had some worthwhile visitors though - Joe McCarthy Photography or Jungle Jim as he's been known has passed by and taken some 'proper' shots of work in progress which will be posted once I've figured out how to reduce them from their gargantuan size. Today we had another legend: Mikey from Antigua who has agreed to step in and help us with some of the bright work in the last week or so before launching. Mikey is a varnishing guru who has worked on many of the worlds most beautiful yachts including Buttercup of Lymington and both Alice II and III.

We also had confirmation from Darren at Hempel paints that they are going to try out their Foul Release Coating - X3 - which works like a non-stick pan rather than containing poisons. It also has the added bonus that should be faster and lasts for at least 10 years. The tricky part is application so we have to do it under their careful supervision.

Jess will be back soon - the last I heard from her she was on a high ropes course with all four boys (including our 5 year old twins), I'm looking forward to hearing the tales...

Missing Jessie...

One month to go before the Southampton boat show - yikes! This is Kit blogging as Jess is away with the boys in the french Alps... So forgive the drop in quality! I've spent most of the last week bolting deck fittings and chainplates down onto the beautiful Kebony laid deck. Like so many jobs they always take longer than you think. Below deck we have an electrical wizard - Jamie Marley from Marley Marine helping us and Graeme Hawksley from Hybrid Marine will be here towards the end of the week to install his Hybrid engine systems. So, I'm hoping the next week will show a great leap forwards towards being Show ready. The prop has arrived from Darglow - and she's a real beauty - at 17" diameter it is well over sized but being a feathering prop it shouldn't affect our sailing speed too much and when it comes to regeneration it should perform well. Other news is the mast which has arrived from Selden and looks great - complete with LED nav lights by LOPOLIGHTS which are very cool looking and super efficient.

When Jess returns refreshed and relaxed (with four slightly wild boys I'm not so sure) after her alpine adventure I hope she will be impressed by our progress with Calypso... I can't wait!

Contessa goes Harken mad!

When I was researching winches, there was a clue that Harken might have a good environmental ethos. The company globally are sponsors of Plastiki - a great project which involves sailing a boat made out of 12,000 recycled plastic bottles across the Pacific ocean to highlight the problem of plastic in the world's oceans. The same drive as the powerful film "Message in the Waves". When I started talking to Lymington based Harken UK about their environmental policy they had an unusual answer which got me thinking. Managing Director, Andy Ashvie said "we don't really believe in policies here". There's something to be said for not having too many policies, it kind of kills the spirit and the energy of a place and when I probed further it turns out that Harken have quite an advanced approach to environmental management - The UK facility reduced it's energy consumption by 25% last year. Globally, teleconferencing is encouraged, there is an advanced system of waste recycling and the new factories in Italy and the US are state-of-the-art, packed with eco features. In the course of building Calypso we are discovering quite a few progressive companies like this, who don't make a big song and dance about their eco credentials - the truth is that being green is often about being efficient - something any company who wants to stay in business does naturally. The great thing for us, is that out of this drive for efficiency, Harken have come up with a revolutionary new winch system making them substantially lighter, really easy to strip down and clean/fix - and they look really cool! So, after many years, Contessa goes Harken -I think it will be the beginning of a great partnership.

Deck down

Today, the two halves of the mould were reunited again. That is, the deck got bonded to the hull. Quite a moment. Not many 32s have laid decks, and of course this is the first to have a Kebony laid deck, and it looks beautiful. It was quite surreal to see the deck suspended a foot above the hull with Jeremy and John Osey busy down below fixing things. I was so glad it wasn't my job to make sure the two halves fitted - because once you've committed there really is no going back. How amazing to be witnessing the evolution of the boat like this. There is still a lot to be done before the Southampton Boat Show, 10th September, but Jeremy seems relatively calm so either he's a good actor, or it's all under control!

Heads, loo, bog, toilet, crapper.

Chances are, if you spend a lengthy period on a boat there will come a time when you have to get intimate with the heads. Our old boat, Silurian, had these amazing bronze contraptions (I think they were old Wilcox Crittenden) which it ended up being my job to service. I can honestly say that by the end I had developed a bit of an affection for them; they seemed almost tolerant of my slightly ham fisted efforts to repair them and would work even when I twisted the gaskets and put things back in the wrong order. So, it was with some trepidation that we decided to go for electric heads on Calypso - because of the tiny amount of water used - therefore taking up less space in the black water tank. I had this sort of sense of dread whenever my mind wandered to that area of the boat, which really wasn't a good start. Then I spoke to the people that know about bogs at Lee Sanitation and they persuaded me that a good quality hand pump toilet with a good dry flush option would be fine. It was like a cloud lifting. I'm now looking forward to the arrival of a new friend from Germany - hopefully this one will be as tolerant.

The nose knows

The latest job on the list in the building of Calypso is the laying of the cabin sole which Jeremy has been working on and the laying of the deck by one of the team, David Wreyford. Both are very skilled jobs and it's very rare nowadays for a deck to be laid like this. The guys are using two new products in this job, the teak replacement, Kebony and a new, solvent-free sealant called Saba which also doesn't "go off" in the tube, dramatically cutting down on waste. I was curious to know how David was finding using the Kebony; "fine", he said, "much like teak - but it's got a funny smell"! I have to say, I really like it. Now, when you open the door to the yard a strong smell of mollases fills the air (it comes from the sugar industry bi-product used in the process of making Kebony). I think it will settle down once it's not being sanded and it's varnished with the linseed based Le Tonkinois varnish. To the untrained nose, it all makes a welcome change from the normal boat yard smells.

Keep it in the family

Recently, we put out a request on the Contessa 32 Class Association website for photos to use in the new, soon to be launched Jeremy Rogers website. Looking through the Contessa 32 Facebook site I realised that although I joined the Rogers family years ago, I have yet to join the Contessa family which is really an incredible institution! There is even a Dutch Contessa 32 Assocation! I met a 32 owner today, Clive Tollett, who lives on board his boat the whole summer, laying up the boat each year where he happens to end up - (in my dreams, maybe one day)! It was such fun hearing his ideas about what might work on Calypso and seeing his genuine interest in the changes to the layout below and his enthusiasm for the project. We are really looking forward to showing all of you 32 and Contessa 26 owners around the boat at the Southampton Boat Show - and Kit and I are looking forward to joining the Contessa clan!

Don't get mad, get even!

It sounds silly, but when we started living on shore, after several years at sea, I felt really quite grateful that I could put something down on the side in the kitchen and know it would stay there. I remember getting really quite cross with the invisible bully who seemed to wait for the most inconvenient moment to push me and my belongings around - the galley was where he tended to strike! I do realise that getting cross is a really bad approach, will only make things worse and the only sensible thing to do is make your galley space as user friendly as possible. Fortunately, I'm not the first person to come across this problem and a UK company have come up with some very clever design concepts aimed at making cooking at sea a pleasure. GN Espace is run by two guys, one a sailor and product designer and the other a chef. The idea is that everything fits - so the trays from your cooker and storage boxes from the cupboard fit perfectly into the sink, the hot water comes from the Quooker, so no unnecessary kettles flying around and taking up space. The gas cooker, made in Essex, is a beauty and 30% more efficient than a regular cooker. Suddenly, I'm quite looking forward to cooking on Calypso. Bring it on bully.

Call the Police, it's teak!

I'm afraid I'm in danger of turning into a Kebony bore - but it is such a great product and such a good idea! You can get sustainably grown teak, but problem with it is that it has to grow fast in order to be sustainable, so it tends to be softer, more sappy and generally not up to scratch. Kebony, on the other hand (here she goes) uses sustainably grown wood, in our case maple but sometimes a softwood like pine, which is then placed in a vat of furfuryl alcohol (a natural and harmless byproduct of the sugar making industry) and heated. It's a clever way of mimicking the natural process which goes on during the long growth of a tropical hardwood - and the result is this incredibly durable wood, which looks and feels and weathers like the best quality teak, but is absolutely, certifiably sustainable. Apparently in Norway it's impossible to import teak and some Kebony was recently used in a local train station for seating. Within days the local council was inundated with complaints, and demands for the seating to be removed and somebody prosecuted, as people were convinced it was made out of tropical hardwood. In the end, signs had to be permanently erected explaining the provenance of the wood before the furore died down. Is this a sign of things to come in the rest of Europe? We certainly are some way behind our Norwegian friends.

Dirty secret!

I don't normally get really excited about boat gear, but there is one piece of equipment that I have a bit of an obscure liking for and that is pumps. Maybe it's something to do with the fact they could keep the boat afloat in an emergency, but I don't think so. I'm afraid it's linked to the same area of the brain that gets pleasure from cleaning hair out of the shower plug hole, or wax out of an ear (preferably not your own). It's the potential a pump has to get into the smallest, dirtiest place in the boat and clean it out. Ahem, anyway... We had a very nice man from Whale pumps, Simon McFarland crawling round the boat the other day. We were all scratching our heads figuring out where to put holding tanks (there will be two, one for grey water and another for black water) and where best to place the pumps. Whale have come up with this great new generation of pumps called Intelligent Control pumps - they come on automatically when there's a body of water over the sensor. This gets away from the old float switch style which have a tendency to get gunged up, stuck on, or not float free. It's true, there will be less opportunity for me to get my head in the bilge and free the pumps - but I can probably learn to live with it!

Insulation, insulation, insulation

Ok, it's not very sexy but it's something we all need to do more of. In a boat you're limited by the fact that insulation material can absolutely not absorb water - no fleeces or tumble dryer fluff for us (it's true there is someone making something eco out of tumble dryer fluff). So Calypso is now well and truly packed with 2 inches of thinsulate insulation - no doubt that will have real impact on condensation as well as warmth. Bring on winter sailing trips!

steady progress

Just over two months to get Calypso in the water and another month to get her ready for the Southampton Boat Show in September. It's quite a tall order and Jeremy is working flat out and Kit in all his spare time. Things are starting to take shape though - Roger Figgures, the local stainless steel craftsman delivered a beautiful fuel tank (see photo) and Jeremy and Kit are seen here lowering the new, super efficient fridge into place. We've also been thinking about how to create a slightly different, more open feel to the main saloon. Jeremy is a proper shipwright, top quality joinery throughout and no quick fixes allowed. What I am realising is that many of the modern, simple looks that I quite like are created by cutting corners, gluing things together instead of making it properly, and to last. There's only so much you can do on a 32 ft boat and we want to keep the features that make the Contessa so special, so the plan is to get rid of some of the built in cushioning which should give us the feel we want without comprimising on quality. I'm sure Jeremy must be secretly tearing his hair out as Fiona and I have various "brainwaves" which invariably mean more work for him but he doesn't show it, and so far we are all still talking!