Boy are we excited to see these pictures!! Our new Southerly 49 is finished and heading off to the London Boat Show. Northshore are bringing five boats to the show this year and they all travel in a convoy from the South of England the 3 hours or so up to London. Note the running lights strapped to the side of the stern! Because of the lifting keel the boat isn’t really very tall on a truck. On the stern you can see she has a large opening garage door. This is a first for us and we are interested in seeing how we get on with it. The door opens hydraulically by remote and offers lots of stowage aft for dive gear, dinghy stuff etc. When folded down it is a boarding platform.
There are also a few shots showing the inside finished. We chose Cherry wood for the interior again (same as on the 42). This is the forward master stateroom (looking forward). The black circle under the bunk is a heating vent! For the first time in 20 years of voyaging we are planning a trip north! Details to follow!

If you are around England early January why not come to the London Boat Show! And if you do please drop by Northshore’s booth (stand) and say hello!!

Its just a couple of weeks until the London Boat Show. Northshore is taking our new boat to the show so it must be ready on time!

Here she is in the factory as final touches are applied on deck. Note how low the boat sits in the factory since here keel is fully retracted.


The London Boat Show starts on January 8, but it turns out the boats must arrive well before that for the set up in the buildings. So she will be moving from Northshore around December 20! I was quite surprised it is such a long set up time. The London Boat Show is the only boat show I have been to outside North America, and its AMAZING! We were there three years ago and I have to recommend it if you can get there. Certainly if you are serious about getting a new cruising boat, it pays to check out the European offerings, and many more of them come to London than the American shows. Plus its just plain fun to go to a different boat show!

We found London was amazing in how much work was put into the displays, or “Stands” as the British call them. We are used to some carpet being put down around the boats, with ramps and stairs to help you get on board. But in London the Stand can be much more ornate.
Northshore had a nice little Cappuccino/Cafe and owners lounge, and they were one of the more restrained. The larger powerboat manufacturers build entire restaurants, oyster bars with linen and waiters standing by! (I shot this in 2007)

This year Sheryl and I are very excited to be presenting on the main show stage at the London Boat Show! We will be talking about our latest transatlantic crossing in 2007, and give some hints for enjoying the amazing shallow Bahamas.
Times:

• Saturday 9 January, 10:30-11:00
• Sunday 10 January, 12:00-12:30

If you are around please drop by!

Of course we will also be hanging around our new boat at Northshore’s stand. We will be at the show Friday Jan 8 through Monday Jan 11 then flying back for Toronto.

I have mentioned before that the new Southerly 49 has a distributed power system. I took a few photos of this the last time I was over but they didn’t come out, so I asked Southerly Engineer Ian to send me a couple of shots. Ian is has been doing the electrical and machinery installations on our new boat and as you can see from the photos he does meticulous work! Thanks for the pix Ian!

Here is a close up of one of the EmpirBus nodes. This one is in the Aft cabin so any wiring in the aft of the boat will come here instead of running all the way up to a main circuit panel. Note the sound insulation. This is a compartment just aft of the engine box and although it wouldn’t strictly need to be insulated, they have done it just to make extra sure the boat is quiet!


Now here is a close up of the wiring to the node. Main power to the node comes in the lower left with the big red wire. (negative is hidden in this photo). The individual circuits and control wires are all neatly labelled.

Here you can see the wires are all coded. Both ends of the wire are named and the codes are recorded in the wiring diagram for the boat. Note Upper left wire is “11A1” meaning Node 11, Block A, terminal “1”.


With a distributed power system the functions of each node are programmed by software. So you do need to know exactly which you have plugged into. Then you tell the system what you would like that terminal to do!

Example: Deck Flood light. On a traditional boat this would have a switch at the main wiring panel. But now we can do more than that. First the deck light is connected into a node to give it power. Then assign a switch that can control it, perhaps at the main panel. But we could also program one of the switches at the helm to turn it on. And say we wanted a kind of “Alert” switch in the forward cabin in case we had an emergency. Simply program one of the switches in the forward cabin to do a few things. It could turn on the saloon lights plus the deck flood and cockpit lights all at once. This could just as easily be done at any time. There would be NO additional wiring to do this at all.

There will be some more learning to get familiar with the new power system but the benefits will be well worth it.

Battery Bank

Ian also sent some pictures of the main battery bank installed. We have four large 185AH Mastervolt AGM batteries totalling 740AH capacity. Another neat installation and with the boat’s raised saloon they are able to install them centrally and keep the weight over the keel.