Having become totally addicted to the cruising lifestyle, but also observant that we are not getting any younger, we have made the commitment to the “next step” after Raven – an Unsailboat! We’ve watched as Steve and Linda Dashew, motivated by these same thoughts, crossed over to the “dark side” to design their very first ocean-crossing motor yacht in over 30 years of developing high performance sailing yachts. We even saw the prototype FPB 83 Wind Horse under construction in Kelly Archer’s boatbuilding yard in 2004 when we flew to New Zealand to purchase Raven, and we enjoyed a day of fishing on Wind Horse in Musket Cove, Fiji, when we crossed paths with the Dashews on the FPB 83’s shakedown passage from New Zealand to the U.S.
So guess what – we’re first in line for a baby Wind Horse, officially known as an FPB 64 (that stands for Fast Power Boat, or alternatively Functional Power Boat, but not F******g Power Boat by the way). Construction on our new FPB started in April 2008 at the Circa Marine & Industrial Ltd boat building facility in Whangarei, New Zealand. The new vessel won’t be ready for launch until late 2009, so we have plenty of cruising miles ahead of us aboard Raven before making the jump. And we’re already planning exciting new cruising routes for our new passagemaker as soon as it’s ready to go.
The FPB series has already gotten a lot of attention in the press ever since construction started on the prototype FPB 83 Wind Horse in 2004. Click here to see some of the articles written about the FPB series published over the past few years, with more to come as the 64 series gets underway.
By the way, we may not be getting any younger as the years go by, but when we’re on board Raven we feel younger!