Where in the hell is the USA650 team?

Where to start?!? For those of you that have not been following along already here is an update of the past year or so… Katie and I moved to Texas to work with Sam Ausmus to start building a Series (production) Mini based on the design of our own boat. It has been a long process! We decided that our existing moulds were not up to the task of building a production boat, so we needed to build at least one more prototype out of the mould, make it perfect, and then pull new moulds from that boat. We first had to find a customer for it. Luckily that customer was right here in Houston, and we were underway. After about 5 months of build on that boat we spent several more months making new moulds and preparing to build a series boat. We had to collect the materials and learn what we could about resin infusion. It took us a little longer than we hoped! In mid November we started hull #1, and to date we have the boat basically completed with the hull and deck joined together this week. We expect to start putting hardware on it next week and be sailing in a month if all goes well. Katie will sail this boat in the Bermuda 1-2 this summer, and I will sail WAFI. Stay tuned for more about this new boat. It’s going to be exciting! Check out the website for the project of you are interested. http://www.thirdcoastcomposites.com

That was only part one of the story! We have had some other adventures since we moved to Texas. When we moved down here we found a nice little house in a small island town called Clear Lake Shores about 5 miles from the shop. We convinced the landlord to give us a break on the rent in return for painting a sprucing up the place. We took our time doing it, and had just really finished it to our satisfaction in about August of last year. Things were great. Then we had a little weather problem in the form of Hurricane IKE. We retreated the day before it came ashore to Denver Hopkins place north of Houston to ride it out. When we returned a couple days later we found the floor of the house covered in mud and a waterline on the wall at 3-4 feet above the floor. Say goodbye to the house, and nearly all of our belongings. Bummer.

Let me back up just a bit now. While we were living in Clear Lake Shores we got interested in simplifying our lives a bit, and were looking for a way to do some travelling, so we purchased an old GMC motorhome to restore. The coach was in great shape externally, and did run, but needed to have a new interior, which we were excited to construct. We started working on it, but hadn’t finished much when IKE struck. We hoped that the motorhome would be all right, but it had water damage as well. We were able to return it for a little credit to the folks we purchased it from, and got another project delivered a couple months after the hurricane. Meanwhile we lived with our friend and boss Sam and his wife Vicky. After a couple months of work on it we have it in livable condition and have moved in for good. We have it parked just outside the workshop (very convenient!), and have settled into a normal routine again.

This being an odd year we are preparing once again to spend all of our time and money to participate in the Bermuda 1-2 Yacht Race. I will start documenting all of the projects I have to complete to bring WAFI up to the current class rules and also make some improvements as Iwe go along.

We will also post some updates about the rest of our projects – the RV, other boats we are working on, and our plans for the future. It’s going to be a busy spring, but we will try to keep the website up to date as much as possible!

Drew