From Very Wet and Windy Bay of Islands!

Well It has been a very long time since I wrote my first post on this site, sorry for that.

The building of Wolfhound has certainly turned into a lifes work for both the builder, Martyn Brake, and ourselves as it is now in the 7th year of construction. We have had our ups and downs over the past years and at times the project has threatened to overwhelm us but the end is, at last, in sight!

As you will see from the latest photos she is so near to completion but the rig and sails are many weeks away from delivery to the yard. The rig is being built by a great little company we have found here in Opua, Northland Spars and Rigging. They will build the masts here in New Zealand and ship in a container to the UK where the masts will be assembled and stepped on the yacht, probably in Southampton or Portsmouth. The beauty of having it built here is that they are patiently letting Steven 'interfer' with the design process.

The sails have been designed by Roger Hall from the North Sails loft in Opua, a few hundred metres walk from the Spar manufacturer so they can confer and get it all just right. However, the sails will be built in the North loft in the UK.

So all in all its happening and we hope to have her in the water towards the end of the European summer and rigged in the Autumn. This does mean that we will have missed the chance to get across the Atlantic this year but gives us plenty of time to iron out any wrinkles and do a shakedown trip before we leave Europe for good in 2016.

I will try to give more regular updates from now on as I have been very tardy to date.