Quite a bit has happened since our last construction update. First off as you can see, the name and home port is painted on. So instead of people pointing and saying “look at that strange looking fishing trawler boat”, they can now say “look at that strange looking fishing trawler boat named Kosmos, and they spelled Cosmos wrong too, people must be pretty dumb in San Diego.” Sigh. Ok, hopefully rather than “strange” the adjective is “magnificent”. We know Kosmos does not look like most other boats, and we happen to think Kosmos is looking quite seaworthy right now. Of course readers here know why it is “˜K’ not “˜C’, and we are pretty sure that our boat name will lead to some interesting conversations.

There were more goodies attached, for example the paravanes are installed. Parawhat? You know, Dictionary.com Paravanes – (n) A device equipped with sharp teeth and towed alongside a ship to cut the mooring cables of submerged [explosive] mines. Pretty awesome don’t you think? Our first mission will be to clear the underwater mine fields near San Diego at position”¦ Wait, no. While paravanes of that definition (and the more potent explosive anti-submarine paravanes) could be useful we suppose, that is not what we got. And surprisingly the net let us down on this one. Just search for paravanes, and you will see most references are for the military paravanes. I did a quick update to Wikipedia to add what we really got, which is what the trawler/passagemaker boat community defines them as: Paravanes are a system help stabilize the boat from rolling. They are poles that stick out and drag underwater gliders. Here is a picture of a Nordhavn 46 with the paravanes deployed:

And here are pictures of our paravanes poles and the metal gliders, aka “fish”, mounted on the back of Kosmos.

Sailboats do not need paravanes since the wind pushes them on their side and keeps them from rolling. Most powerboats do not need paravanes because they skim on top of the water at such high speeds the water pressure forces keep the boat from rolling. Slow single hull boats that efficiently plow through the water (us) sometimes uncomfortably roll from side to side in rougher conditions and they can benefit from paravanes. We also have hydraulic powered fins mounted underwater to reduce roll. It is part of the theme of redundant systems on Kosmos.

Here are some nice shots of Kosmos looking almost done from the outside. Reminder: We have a white mesh protective covers on the windows. Notice the mast, boom, side railing, anchor bow roller, and anchor. Many people have asked for more “perspective shots”, so 5 foot 6 inch tall Christi is included on the dock on a couple pictures. Yep, Kosmos is a pretty big boat.

Alas there is still more to go outside. For example astute people may notice the smoke stack is missing, as well as antennas for the VHF and SSB. Also the winch cover was off and the winches still need spectra line installed.

Then there is inside. Some may ask if anything needs to be done inside, after all many previous pictures show it looking great. Well here are some pictures from this weekend.

You would think we are going backwards in progress compared to previous photos, but not true. There are long checklists for internal systems and we know Nordhavn does a very through job configuring and checking the boat. For example this week another 43 had an issue with the galley exhaust fan. So guess what? Ours was taken apart as well to check it. The folks at Nordhavn are awesome that way; they use everything they know to make the boat the best it can be.

Current guess to delivery is about 3-4 weeks (mid May), but do not hold us to any dates. We have waited a long time and we have no problem waiting for the boat to be done right. But that nice logical assessment does little to calm our giddy spirit which is constantly chanting “We want the boat now!”.