The boat

We built a cruising boat. This blog is not about the build though, it is about the cruise we are making after the boat is launched.

Ok, a pic of the early stages of building Ashiki, just to get perspective:

.. and another..

one more:

Pic of her launching:

..and here she is with the wind in her sails.

If you hunger for build pictures here's a whole pile.

That's 5 1/2 years covered, it was a lot of work. 

Ashiki is a junk rig schooner, on a ply and fibreglass hull, a Jay Benford designed dory better known as a "Badger", 35' Length overall (LOA) and 10' beam and at the moment is cruising the Western Australian coast. 

The plan is to sail onto SE Asia, hopefully. This means waiting for the cyclone season up north (of Australia) to finish. So in the mean time we are doing a "shake down" cruise. Which is to say we sail around learning her and if stuff breaks, we get a chance to fix it and make sure it doesn't bust again, hopefully...

There's lots to learn too, we never owned a large boat like this before, and certainly not a chinese junk rig. We also live aboard her full time. Yes, we sold most our belongings, moved out of the house, sold the car and spend time 100% afloat.