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Greetings all! I hope that you are well wherever you are. This is just a quick update on what is happening with our boat. I hadn’t planned on sending an update because, with all that is going on, who cares about a boat? These are crazy times, with a lot of pain around the world, and even thinking about the idea of boats and recreation seems wrong. But, readers of my blog have been asking, so I’ll make this short. Our boat is being built at Grand Banks’ factory in Malaysia. The factory was closed for over two months because of the virus. The factory is back up and running again, but operating under government imposed restrictions. Under normal conditions our boat would be a beehive of activity with dozens of workers focused on completing the boat. In these days of social distancing, with the health of the workers as priority #1, work has to precede at a different pace. There is some good news. During the time the factory was closed Roberta and I had no information about the status of the boat. In particular, we were wondering if the boat had been painted. We knew they were preparing the boat for paint, but when the shutdown happened it happened abruptly and without warning.
Now that the factory has reopened I was able to get this up-to-date picture and speak directly with the Grand Banks team in Malaysia. Our boat was painted in the days before the shutdown! I wish the light had been better when the picture above was taken, but it does give a sense of what the final color will be and the state of completion. As you can see, we are creeping towards the finish line and the boat probably would have been completed by now had the shutdown not occurred. I asked about a revised schedule for when we would receive the boat. No firm answer could be given as we are in uncharted territory. The best guess was that the boat would be factory complete in late July. It will then take several weeks before the boat will be delivered to the West Coast, and more weeks for “commissioning”. It is very unlikely that we will be cruising this summer. It will be frustrating to receive our new boat and do nothing more with it than to put it away for the winter. That said, the whole idea of boating seems frivolous when measured against all the misery in the world right now. At this point all I can do is hope there comes a day when life returns to normal and such things as summers spent on a boat are once again relevant. Best wishes and stay healthy. As always, the best place to provide feedback on this blog entry is on the web-based version of my blog: www.kensblog.com/blog. All feedback is welcomed! Thank you for sharing our adventure, Ken and Roberta Williams (with Toundra and Keeley our doggy/’furry kids’ traveling mates) |
Cygnus