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Seayanika Launch Day -- Finally! Now we know. It took three years, three months and three days to take a bare hull and transform it into a beautiful sailing machine. Okay, okay, so our original goal of 18 months was a bit, shall we say, overenthusiastic, but hey -- it was worth a shot. Any way you look at it, preparing and launching a boat is a nail-biting experience. Will everything be ready in time? Will she float? Will she list to port? Will she break in half when the travel lift picks her up? Now add several hundred people, newspapers and TV cameras to witness your success or failure, and the stress intensifies tenfold. During the final six weeks of construction and launch preparation, nothing went according to plan. (I'm an organized person and I always have a Plan.) Every unfavorable day of weather was an obstacle, every delay was a near calamity, and every snag propagated several more. Somehow Murphy showed up and gave us the evil eye. Here's how the countdown proceeded. Six weeks to go -- We set our launch date for January 17. Erik and I drove down to San Diego and spoke with Point Sails, our sailmaker, and put down a deposit. Then it was off to our rigger, Pacific Offshore Rigging, to make sure our time frame worked for them. No problem. Driscoll's Boat Works was unanimously recommended for the actual launch, so we made a quick trip over there to check the date and to get on the calendar. I had envisioned the launch party at the boatyard, complete with a big barbeque, a band and an abundant supply of alcoholic beverages. Oops, that won't work -- no alcoholic beverages allowed. Snag #1. Okay, I'll come up with Plan B. Next I had to check with San Diego Boat Movers to make sure they could move Seayanika from her Vista hilltop location to Driscoll's on the Thursday prior to launch. Enter Snag #2 -- they were booked. Alrighty now! How about a week later, January 24? This worked for the boat movers, so we retraced our steps to the rigger and the boatyard, and finally got a date everyone could deal with. Five weeks to go -- I still needed to come up with Plan B for the launch party, but I wasn't worried. Shelter Island (where the boatyard is located) has several hotels and marinas, and I was confident I would quickly find an alternative. Also, in a prior life I used to do all the planning and organizing for sizeable conventions, so I felt pretty well-equipped for the job. I started making calls and inquiries. Meanwhile, Erik needed an important engine/drive shaft adapter. We found a source and ordered it, with the assurances that we would receive it before the end of the year. Four weeks to go -- I was still calling hotels and marinas. One had no large rooms available. The next didn't have any 50-foot slips within miles. The third wouldn't allow us to use their meeting facilities without paying for a Grand Catering Extravaganza. I got much the same results from the nice restaurants around the bay. Then out of the blue came an email from a Shelter Island yacht club member who has been following our progress updates in Latitude 38. This kind soul offered to arrange an introduction and meeting with the yacht club to discuss the possibility of having Seayanika's launching party there. After the actual launch, everyone could mosey around the corner to the yacht club for food and beverages. Everything was looking up, Plan C was in the works, so I breathed a sigh of relief. Three weeks to go -- Christmas and New Year's came and went. With 'The Schedule' to worry about, we didn't really celebrate. In fact, the holidays this time were more of a nuisance since everyone was gone on vacation and all orders were on hold. Our ever-enthusiastic boat slaves -- some of whom still call themselves our friends -- continued to drive upwards of 100 miles a day to help us with all of he menial, boring and filthy grunt jobs. We still had an impressive list of things to accomplish before Seayanika could hit the water. But of course the all-important engine/drive adaptor hadn't arrived as promised. We couldn't bolt the engine down until it did. I made a call to the vendor and it seemed the part may have been lost in transit from Holland. Let's see, is that Snag #3 or #4. Will they find it? They think so. Yes, I am most definitely nervous now.
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'Seayanika' in the slings at Driscoll's yard in San Diego. The launch went without a hitch for the boat. Unfortunately, our photographer was not so lucky -- the picture we wanted to run of the launch in this space went down with the camera when she accidentally dropped it overboard! Two weeks to go -- Erik was madly hooking up electronics and hydraulics and working on the rudder. Our wonderful boat slaves and I were applying gooey barrier coat and bottom paint. The red anti-fouling paint left us all splattered and looking like we'd been in a cat fight. Our Dutch vendor still hadn't found the part. It was time to email the invitations, but first I needed to make sure we received board approval for our after-launching party at the yacht club. I made a call and found out that yes, we got approval...but the cost is going to be double what we were quoted. Uh oh, Snag #4. Humm, Plan D -- if I provided food and soft drinks at the boatyard instead, kept everyone occupied there longer and had a smaller after-launch party, then I could rent a couple of townhouses on Shelter Island and a slip at Kona Kai Marina. This was Plan D, and I was sticking to it. I sent out the invitations to set it in stone. One week to go -- Time to reconfirm with everyone. Boat movers, check; boatyard, check; hotel, check; marina, check; rigger, check. Everything seemed to be in order. Our wonderful Dutchmen had located the missing adapter. They assured us they would have it within two days and overnight it to us. Erik continued to connect things, I continued to worry (okay, nag). Well-meaning friends were stopping by with beer to shoot the breeze and tour Seayanika. We either sent them away or put them to work. No time for idle chitchat now. We reviewed our lists of thins to do. One list itemized the tasks we had to accomplish to put the boat in the water; the other had all the other things we'd like to do. Can you guess which one was gathering the most dust? We had six days before Seayanika was moved off the hill and if we stayed focused -- and got the adapter -- we'd be able to motor the boat under her own power. Moving day -- San Diego Boat Movers showed up promptly at 8 a.m. on Thursday, January 22, to begin the slow process of loading Seayanika onto their truck. Meanwhile, Erik was in the Bobcat cutting and smoothing a road so the truck could maneuver. The lay of the land here on the hilltop is such that we needed to stop traffic in both directions so the boat movers could back up nearly a block just to turn around. Luckily no irate, time-pressed drivers came by, only awed spectators who gladly pulled over to watch the spectacle. While all this shuffling was going on, Larry Himmel of Channel 8 in San Diego was interviewing everyone; Erik and I, our friends, neighbors, the boat movers, the spectators, and any hapless passerby. Once Seayanika was completely loaded, secured and turned in the right direction, a parade of cars and TV crew followed her down the freeway to the launch site. Readers -- A few hours before this issue headed out the door, Katriana called to say that the adapter arrived from Holland, the boat arrived in San Diego, and the champagne broke on schedule at noon on January 24. "She floated upright, she's not leaking and she's not listing," said Katriana -- which is doubly a good thing considering that over 100 friends and a few local TV stations were there watching. After the launch, Seayanika motored under her own power to the Shelter Point motel and the apres-launch party. She was to return to Driscoll's to have the rig installed on February 2. Congratulations!
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