Well. This should be a long and interesting blog, that's for sure. After a year on our previous boat AreWeThereYet , we have decided to tackle a new project...something like climbing Mt Everest perhaps. We've signed the contract for a new widebeam sailaway, from Lymm Boat Builders which we should receive sometime before mid August, hopefully sooner. I thought I'd focus this blog on every thought process we go through regarding the preparation for the build, the actual build, and the final result. It's going to be a journey...a great adventure...with lots of lessons to learn...lots of pain...and lots of gain, we hope. To date, we've been down to the boat yard and walked around the inside of other widebeams, putting masking tape down to check our measurements, and drawn up a floorplan to give the builders, as they need to know where to cut windows etc. We dont have the funds to get a fancy sailaway, so we've gone for an unpainted, unlined boat. To clarify, this is the cheapest form of sailaway....effectively an empty metal shell, painted in primer, blacked hull, spray foam interior insulation, and an engine, so you can drive off in it. My wife asked me the other day....what do you do first....I said....I have no idea :) Here's a pic of a sailaway interior.

So, now you know what we have to tackle ahead of us. What I didnt mention is...we have a cat, and 3 children. When we receive the boat, they will have no where to sleep. There will be no toilet. There will be no kitchen. There will be no heating. There will be no shower. There will be....erm....anything. Just an empty shell. Luckily, we have a mooring in a marina with toilets, shower, washing machine, but it's going to be a race to get the basics in place as quickly as we can. Some people take 2 years to fit out a boat. I'm hoping to have floors, walls, ceiling, bulkheads in place within a week, and services in, soon after. We shall see. This blog should serve as a great reference to anyone planning on doing the same. We also have a very limited budget. There will be a lot of finding items on Ebay, on sale, etc. (in other words I will NOT be buying 10 screws at a time from B&Q, and I WILL be buying Eastern Africa Ply at £8 a sheet, instead of oak veneer ply at £25 a sheet. I did 15yrs as an instrument mechanic as a trade, so I'm quite confident in my abilities to do woodwork, plumbing, elec cable connections, flooring, painting etc. Anything I dont know, I'm going to reference off the web, and ask CanalWorldForum :) I guess this will do as my first post. Feel free to take the journey with me...it's going to be an interesting and bumpy ride, but the destinations going to be worth it.