It’s been quite a while since I announced that we would replace Impromptu with a new Nordic 40. What’s been going on since then, you may wonder.
Construction has been delayed by the twin curses of the pandemic: labor shortage and supply chain delays. Whether they can make up time remains to be seen. Maybe we’ll be on the water in May or June rather than April.
Of course what I really mean is “curses” other than the needless suffering and death caused by idiots who refuse to get vaccinated. Think the vaccine may have side-effects worse than slowly suffocating? Skip your next Flat Earth Society meeting and get yourself educated.
But I digress.
We made a trip to the Nordic Tugs factory to see how things are going. We found our hull and top cap out of the molds and being prepped for the installation of wiring and so on. At the last minute, we decided not to go with a red stripe like Impromptu but to use Stars and Stripes Blue, in memory of the hull color on Fiona Bean.
There’s not a lot to show you this time. Just the top and bottom halves of our future vessel.
Perhaps you’re wondering, as I was, why this color is called “Stars and Stripes blue”. It clearly is not the blue of the US flag. But it is the color of Dennis Connor’s America’s Cup yacht, named Stars and Stripes.
Now, let me introduce the “Name that Boat” contest. The factory calls our new boat 40-08, the eighth Nordic 40 built. It’s descriptive, but perhaps not the best name we can come up with.
Up ’till now, we’ve been calling her Étude for all the reasons that I explained in an earlier post. But experience has shown that it fails to generate an enthusiastic reaction. Here’s your chance to do better or at least give your opinion.
We have a couple of other names that we like: Coda and Straylight. Mary Anne’s suggestion of Impromptutu didn’t make the cut. If you’d like to express support for one of our three contenders, or think you have a better idea, feel free to add a comment at the bottom of this post.
Sorry George, Convoglio has already been rejected.
Next: Ètude Moves On