Bordeaux & Boats!
One of the “terrible” outcomes of building a semi-custom boat in France is that you need to go to the factory to inspect and make selections!! Terrible right?!
Liane and I considered trying to make our selections remotely using FaceTime , photos and the recommendations of our broker but given the amount of $ involved we decided that was a pretty silly idea. If we were building a house we wouldn’t just rock up on handover day and inspect everything to be exactly what we wanted so as quick as I could say “champagne”, we booked some tickets for early December 2018 to take a factory visit with Jason, our broker.
Another “unfortunate” part of the equation is that the Nautitech factory is located only an hour or so away from the St Emilion wine region outside of Bordeaux and given we arrived on the weekend and factory was shut - well we had no other choice did we?!
. The local wineries have it all worked out to easily ship what wine you purchase back home hence some extra special reds were added to the Chateau Watson cellar.
I asked the guy if anyone actually buys these bottles - apparently he sold two that morning!! that’s about $7K!!
Saint Emilion
Not exactly Summer!
It was very exciting to visit the factory on the Monday and see the build before us which was only a month away from completion. Walking around this build really helped us understand the scale of rooms and areas - I guess in the same way that I would struggle to visualise all the details I’d like to from a set of house plans - it is the same, if not harder, with a set of boat plans.
The other issue that a trip to the factory solves is it helps navigate the Frenglish issue with many of our comments over email misunderstood by the French speaking team. The ability to be on the boat and point to an area to clarify what we are trying to describe is in hindsight invaluable.
Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t even contemplate building without a visit to the factory.
She is a BIG girl out of the water!
Hull # 16 - ours is Hull #17
It had been a bit surreal up to this point but being in the yard, standing in our actual hulls, selecting the colours, furnishings, taps etc was amazing and overwhelming at the same time.
It was great having Liane getting right into the design and selection process - our last boats have really been more my play things but this boat is very much OUR boat. Better Together.
Interior colours finalised
Standing in the early stages of our actual boat - Dec 2018
