Here's one of the first photos of the boat on the water taken by my sister Bonnie.
A couple weeks later we had the official launch party. Everyone who had contributed to building the boat was invited, the weather cooperated, everyone got at least one ride and the official bottle breaking was held.
A bit of a humorous story goes along with the bottle breaking. I thought a lot about who to ask and finally decided to ask Caitlin to do it and she agreed. I did warn her that failing to break the bottle on the first swing would condemn the boat to a lifetime of bad luck. She clearly took that to heart for when she swung that bottle it was like she was swinging for the bleachers!
There was champagne and glass everywhere! I'm still finding little pieces of green glass. :-) Photo courtesy of Dan Holt who caught this on his cell phone.
Rides were given and everyone had a good time.
All the kids took one last trip together and they wanted MAX SPEED!!! So we did a full speed run and they all had great big smiles when we got back.
At the end of the day a toast was given, in the Tolman tradition, of Yukon Jack to the designer of these fine boats, Renn Tolman.
The rest of the summer was spent fishing (here's the first one caught by Kenneth) ...
Whale watching (a thrill every time!) ...
And generally poking around Southeast Alaska. A trip to Tenakee Springs was made and each trip only reinforced the confidence this boat inspires.
The boat has been put away for the winter, but some final numbers. The motor was run for 139 flawless hours, 487 gallons of fuel was put in the tanks and that means I average 3.5 gallons per hour. Impressive numbers for a 24' boat.
There's still more to do on the boat, but those projects will just have to wait till spring!