Welcome

As I start this blog, we are moving from one boat to the other. We have spent just over two years living aboard a 54' wooden patrol boat from the war, resplendent in both style and fungi. In the picture she is doing about 8 kts with Lisette at the wheel and myself organizing mooring lines on deck.

As this necessarily has put the relations to my better half under a certain amount of strain, I have gone to the outrageous step of acquiring a new boat before the old one is sold. Thus I find myself as the owner of two relatively large motorboats, both in much need of repair and one in dire need of removal. Despite this stress, however, it has been a tremendous lift for us peronally. The best eating space on board is no longer the bunk. No longer are our cothes prone to rot and mildew because water has penetrated our defenses. My friends no longer tell me that I smell of decay. Above all, I will never again have to watch Lisette cry because one of her favorite tool sets has fallen victim to water ingress. Hell, I've even got a decent shower. And a galley.

In short, life on a Steel Lady 43 seems pretty good. There's plenty of stuff wrong with her, so much so that an attempt to list all the problems in this first post would be hopeless. However, there's nothing there I don't think I can fix, even the slightly tricky running trim issues. More importantly, she is reasonably waterproof, reasonably functional, and she handles like a dream at slow speeds.