Building to first splash

Well … it’s been a while since we initiated this project. There has been ups and downs along the way with a very stressed Garcia yard. Let’s face it, many large corporation saw their production cycles turned upside down by the Covid pandemic, the material, systems and transport costs inflation, and more recently by the shortages of all sort of parts and key systems.

For a small operation like Garcia, it’s been an all-along challenge. We can’t say we haven’t feared for our deposit at some point. In fact, we asked one of the GLY Group founder for a financial-driven analysis, early into the pandemic.

Of course there is additional delay involved. And also a price increase to be expected at the end of the build. The hardest part for us was when the yard announced that they couldn’t cope with any of the customs we had planned for our boat, some of which were safety or comfort-related and important to us (a twin windlass for instance).

This disappointment was mainly due to the way the yard mismanaged this client-relation part, not from the lack of understanding how the context had put a huge strain on their industrial operations.

Anyway, the built has started a few month back, and now the welding part is over, and the boat has been handled to the Cherbourg facility, where Garcia does the furniture and systems installation.

This is a photo selection of the welding phase. Some friends suggested that the looks of this boat could be qualified as “agricultural design”, but what we see there is a lot of strength and the ability to sail to places we wouldn’t have dreamed of with our previous GRP boat.

It all starts with a pile of aluminium plates, but within days the hulls are taking shape.

Then the small details start to appear. This is were one can see the five decades of aluminium boat welding experience.

On one hull we have the additional fuel tank option, and the grey water tank on the other. The bow-thruster tunnel also has been placed on the Port side hull.

And then the structure which will support the furniture and the systems, the bow compartments with the compressor supports, …

We can see how Garcia had earned over time its good reputation for hull build quality and strength. We plan on keeping the hull bare, instead of the grey and white filming which was seen on unit #1 and #2.

A temporary structure is welded underneath for the future road transportation to Cherbourg.

And …. Splash time!

But not for long. She is howled-out for her road trip to Cherbourg, where the furniture and systems installation will take place.

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Seing this big chunk of Aluminum making its way to Cherbourg, let’s meditate a minute on the $/t price evolution of the material since we placed this order.