I just got word of the passing of Henk Bijl. Cancer claimed him April 21. Henk and Joke lived their dream. They built one of my 45′ cruising cats in 1999, I think it was, and have been offering clothing optional ocean cruises in the Caribbean ever since. I never met them, but they were delightful to work with. Zeevonk is for sale, with Allan Veth of Evecom.  www.multihull.nl

It looks like a couple more days of good epoxy weather here in Seattle. I will update all the comments here in a couple of days when the rain comes back. The parts are too big already to fit in the shed so I’m working outside. Materials are stored in shed.

Friend Steve Vogel retired from CSR Marine last Tuesday.  I realized its end of an era. I first met Steve when we both were livaboards at Kelly’s Landing some 33 years ago. Our two boats couldn’t have been more different.  He had a very traditional single hull wooden cruiser.   I had the lightweight trimaran.  He was often game (or crazy enough) to do races with me on my old tri Smoholla the Shaman. More than once he found himself crewing with me at Point No Point, after midnight, with a gale shrieking, as the boat is fully out of the water slugging to windward.
Or the day he ran me up my mast in a late December evening snowstorm, went back to his warm boat, and forgot about me. NPR was riveting. the mast was covered with ice and it was getting darker. I really had no options. I tried yelling. The snowfall got so heavy, all sound was absorbed. He remembered an hour later. He still laughs about that.
He will be cycling in France. Have good one Steve.

During the last trip I did pretty much finish up the new 2013 Trikala plans. Will take a week or two to get around to updating the website. Until the update hits, I will offer the new set at the old set price. New price will be more. I keep hearing that my sets are less cost than most. Maybe that hurts me overall.  Have to fix that. 

You can probably already tell that you can push this much harder than the Searail.   And you can bring non-sailors along on this tri.  Can’t imagine Auntie aboard a Searail in a blow.

And if I may, this new T19 looks a lot less frumpy than the Astus.  Even if they did copy the sliding system.

I had a great lunch yesterday with Scott MacIndoe of Fiberlay (and 5 other composites companies) yesterday. While he appears to be a regular businessman, I discovered that he really is a crazed inventor/chemist. The best kind.

His mind is seething with new inventions. Ones I could use include a new polyurethane fire proof coating and 2 part vinylester, of two equal parts. There must have been a dozen more that I have to remember.

Then there is the tunnel boring machine that also makes its own composite tunnel behind itself…