Just wanted to send everyone a bit of an update on the new boat.
While we were off with Alice in the Pacific and the Transpac Race, Rob O has been very busy at the yard, coordinating the design, engineering and building of Bella 3.0. Rob has done a great job keep the project on track. So far everything looks great.

The deck came off the mold this week. See the attached photos. WIDE LOAD! It is six steps from sidedeck to sidedeck across the transom. The cockpit is enormous. The last photo is of the traveller bulkhead.

Alex “Guru” Wadson, Rob and I have been busy going through rig info. We have decided to build the Rig at Hall here in our backyard. Future Fibers will build the rigging. It will be similar rigging to our TP rig, but be fully continuous. Design work continues…

The hull mold has now been moved into the climate controlled build shed/oven and once Irene gets through wazzeling the North East, lamination will begin on the hull. NEB’s new buildings and fabrication setup are quite impressive. A major improvement since the last build and re-fit. They have a CNC machine working everyday to trim core, build parts and molds for the new boat. The deck is now leveled, next week it will continue to get work as its trimmed/sanded and the parts and structure begin to get added. Bulkheads, longitudinals and the rest of structure is being built as the work continues on the Hull and deck.

The 2012 schedule is starting to come together, it will be a busy spring…..
The racing schedule is shaping up as well. We will get more specific with dates and practice dates in the future.

Pirate

Bella Mente

The hull mold is coming along nicely.

The hull mold is coming along nicely.

https://bellamenteracing.com/bellamente/638/

Mahi Mahi

The boys are having a nice delivery back to the West Coast. They are headed for San Francisco where the boat will be hauled out at KKMI. The trip is taking a little longer than hoped but they are catching plenty of fish.

Here’s a quick picture of the deck getting layed up.

The Bella Mente has left Hawaii and is in route to San Francisco in the first leg of it’s trip back to the East coast to the Merchant Marines. The current Bella Mente is ours no more. Pirate, JV, and Matt are bringing the boat back to the West Coast with a few of the cadets. All of our focus now goes into the new boat. Our containers will head to Newport where one will go to the Merchant Marines, and the other one will get gutted and refit for the new boat. We have received a new container which will have to get fitted out.
Doogie

By now, most of you would have seen that we finished this morning, over 2 hours ahead of Magnitude. The team was ecstatic with the victory. It has been a long road.

We sailed hard all day yesterday and night, doing a few changes to keep the boat on course and pointing towards the mark. Magnitude had to gybe down to the line while we hauled straight to the mark. I’ll try and add a few tid bits of the race that we did not post during the race for various reasons.

For example, on the second night with the kite up, we blew up one of our primary kites for the moderate air. So we had to be careful with the other kites to make sure we conserved our assets.

We are all tired and looking forward to some rest and nice meals.