Building a new boat.
Beautiful boat. Have you enjoyed the process of building?
That is a tough question. To a large extent we are responsible for this new design. The adventure started with a conversation with the head of engineering at Tomco (Kurt). We had an American Tug 435 that we really loved but always felt a little cramped in the in the salon. At that time, AT had a 54 foot boat and a 45 foot boat but they did not have a 50 foot version. I wanted Tomco to take my 435 back (Ocean Mistress), cut it in half and add 4 feet to the salon. This was the time when virtually no one was building new boats, so they were at least willing to listen to me. Kurt, my wife and pretty much everyone I talked to thought I was couple pints short of a 12 pack!
However, it did start a conversation about designing an American Tug 475 (eventually becoming a AT 485). Originally, they were going to add some length to the cockpit and the salon. However, we insisted that we wanted all the new length to reside in the salon. Although on the smallish side, we always like the AT cockpit.
We also wanted to go from a big (550 hp Cummins Recreational engine) to a smaller twin engine, or at least add a get home engine. There was a lot of discussion around the type of engine and what our expectations were for the boats performance. ATs are designed to be fast trawlers. Ocean Mistress cruised well at 7.5 to 8 knots but could get up and go at 17 knots. In the 7 years we owned Ocean Mistress, she only went over 10 knots when I needed to heat the engine up. We spend the vast amount of our time cruising between 5 and 9 knots. Our cruising style was formulated with 20 years for sailing. We are the type that enjoy the trip as much as the arrival! Our cruising style is to hang-out in remote places in the PNW. Kurt came up with what we thought was a brilliant solution. We decided to install a 400 hp continuous duty engine. The engine that we selected is specifically designed to serve the commercial fishing industry in the PNW. We felt the smaller engine would suit our needs better and being a continuous duty would fit with our overnight (slow) mini-passages.
We also made a lot of changes to the support equipment, i.e., larger hot water tank, 240 Watts of solar panels, bigger water maker, NEMA 2000 electronics backbone, and so on…
Salish Lady is our home during the summer and we need to work as well as live on board. The Captain (my wife, there is no co-Captain in our family) had a lot of opinions about what she wanted to add or subtract from the boat. This led to a lot of discussion about what could be done and what would be done. Boats are compromises and being deeply involved in the process really brings this home.
So to your question, did we enjoy the process? I would have to say we really enjoyed the participation in developing what we hope will achieve our goals. My wife and I are scientists and very technical by nature and enjoy getting into the nitty gritty of the design process. The folks at Tomco were very inviting and tolerant of our, at times, crazy ideas. They also worked very hard to adapt to the new technology we were pushing into the design. This part of the experience was great.
We also love that Tomco has been able to sell 5 boats of this model before the first one came off the line (by the way we have the second off the line). However, I am not by nature a patient man. Building a new design is not a linear process with a set schedule. Waiting for her to emerge has been at a minimum painful (although mostly self-inflicted). :bang head:
Now that she has been birthed, we are very excited about getting aboard and starting the shake-down process. I am not sure I would want to get into this level of detail in designing a new vessel any time soon, but we are sure looking forward to cruising the the results of the effort.
Shawn
