Welcome to the Nancy Dawson blog: the assorted adventures of Randy Sherman, Susan Brown and Tom Eidt.

Nancy Dawson is the name of our boat, a 42' Cheoy Lee Clipper. It used to be called Winterhawk, but apparently someone else in Canada has registered a boat with the same name, so the white carved wooden bird of prey has come off the stern, and has been replaced with "Nancy Dawson." Many years ago, Randy was having another boat built (long story, never got built), and he had started carving a nameboard. "Nancy Dawson" was an actress during Lord Nelson's time, and the title of a popular ditty of the day. Nautical lore has it that said ditty was the tune piped to call the sailors for their rum ration. The tune sounds a lot like pop-goes-the-weasel, but it suits us. So he finished the nameboard after several decades, and when we re-launched last week, with proper ceremony and liberal splashings of Pussers Rum, we felt that the Nancy Dawson was happy to be in the water.

We've been planning this trip for about a year and a half. Most of the planning so far has involved ripping the boat to bits, tossing the contents of the house in and out of boxes, and spending money hand over fist. We are at the stage where we're all working seven days a week. Randy and I are falling into bed at 9:30 pm, beat to a snot, and then we lie awake from 1 to 4 going over all that we still have to accomplish before we can leave. I find time to buy lottery tickets.

Frequently asked questions:
Where are you going?
Can I come?
When are you leaving?

And the answers are "the Caribbean," "no," and "I don't know."

I'm still working full-time, so things should either get better (more time) or worse (less money) when I finish work early in August, but I should have time to update our progress, and post photos of the work on the boat. Nobody really wants to see the state of the house, do they?

sb