These pictures capture the hectic days from May 15, 2008 when she was launched through May 19 when we took the first sail. It was very intense, but thanks to an excellent job by everyone it all came together amazingly smoothly.

The Lyman Morse crew worked more frantically than usual on the morning of Thursday the 15th trying to get as many pieces finished or temporarily in place as possible. In the afternoon they started to pull off the protective paper, cardboard and other coverings and the real beauty of their work began to be revealed for the first time (both to us and to them). By 4pm the trailer was backing in and carpenters and mechanics were getting off. Off the stands, onto the trailer and out of the building, the transformation from project to boat was incredibly fast. An hour later Fay had christened her and New Morning was in the water!

On Friday Scott Easom finished assembling the mast just as the crane arrived at 9:30. With the help of Loric and Dave the mast was stepped by shortly after 10:00. With a professional crew it all went very smoothly!

On Saturday afternoon Win Fowler arrived with the sails and by late afternoon she was ready for a sail. On Sunday we rested, Scott finished the running rigging and we took a lot of pictures of the interior and exterior.

On Monday the build crew returned and we were out for a very boisterous first sail. We had true winds of 20-30 knots the entire time which kept us out of the open ocean and as a result our limited sailing room prevented us from really getting settled down with good sail trim. None the less, Billy Black got a beautiful shot of us double reefed and really rolling. The big breeze exposed a few minor problems, but overall she was rock solid, seemed pretty stiff and really moved along nicely. Later that afternoon Mike Feldman from Offshore Spars worked with Scott to tweek the mast step position and finalize the rig tune.

It’s was an amazing five days that left us all exhilarated and exhausted.