Evolution of a New Nav Station Panel...and Love

The before and after of our new nav station panel

The boat has been a complete disaster area for the past two weeks.  Just a total mess.  My OCD tendencies were kept at bay because we are in an apartment at the moment, but our boat literally looked like someone picked her up, turned her upside down and shook her around a bit.  Crap. Was. Everywhere.  Until yesterday...

My uncle and cousins were down for the day with our broker-cum-friend Allen Schiller checking out potential sailboats and planned on stopping by for a late lunch/early dinner.  As I was feeding Isla breakfast, Scott announced that he was going to the boat to "clean it up a bit" for their visit.  (Yeah, he's handy and he cleans.  Hands off ladies, he's mine).  I'm not sure if he sang a little tune to summon a small brigade of peppy chameleons, egrets, and iguanas to help him get the job done, but the boat looks like new.  Like little lizards swept all the mess away with their tails.  You'd never know the tornado that is Walt Genske came through (and I mean that in the most respectful way, if you want to get stuff done on a boat, you gotta tear it up to do it).

One of the things he did to renew order and eliminate part of the mess was mount the new nav station panels that he and Walt made.  They're beautiful.  Here's it's evolution, in a photo montage:

While the pictures might make this look easy, I assure you, for the average joe, this would be tricky.  Because there are no 90º angles on a boat, taking measurements to fit something exactly involves math that I, admittedly, do not know.  Luckily, I married an engineer who not only knows the complex geometry to figure out those tricky slants and slopes, but has the patience to craft them with perfection.  Perfection I tell you.  He is nothing if not an artist.

Before and after, one more time just for fun.

Yesterday also marked the first day when I came aboard Asante and said out loud with giddy excitement "I love our boat"!  Somewhere between digging around in all the cupboards and cabinets while making a mental schematic in my head I fell completely and utterly in love with our new boat.  The layout.  The storage.  The room.  The look.  Suddenly, it felt like home.  What an awesome feeling.