The wife and I have built several homes. On the last one, I got smart, and took pictures inside all the walls before the insulation went in. So I could go back later and see ALL the wiring and plumbing. 

Of course we wanted to do this with the boat. Another nice thing about HYG is that the US folks are at the factory in Shanghai pretty often. When I thought the time was right based on the pictures they were sending me, Larry Clark of the Fort Lauderdale office happened to be in Shanghai. So of course I hit him up for this project. 

Here's an example picture. But later it will be difficult to find the right picture for a given area, right? Wrong! See the number 35 Larry added to this image?

He took the time and trouble to indicate on the drawing above where all 51 pictures were taken. That's the kind of service we are getting on our build, and it is much appreciated. Quite sure this will save us hours of time at some point down the road.

I look at www.trawlerforum.com usually every day. Great resource. And there is a thread there pointing to this blog. I did a post a few days ago regarding some plumbing, and a member replied "You are getting plumbing and water schematics? Nice!"

Which took me back to my first hour aboard a Hampton Endurance. We were looking over the boat. I asked Scott Hauck some technical question and he replied "let's look at the owner's manual." Suffice to say I was blown away. A printed, and bound document, with every system, every specification, and information about every single piece of equipment.  ("And we give it to you in a PDF too, of course.")

I have the PDF manual for a previous hull. I'll share a few pages of it here. I know this will be a much used resource on board.

In addition, the manual for every component is provided in several plastic boxes, all organized by manufacturer. With plenty of room for me to add as we add new equipment.

We have always enjoyed kayaks in our family.  Here we are messing around at beautiful Convict Lake in California's Eastern Sierra, circa 2002. Those boats were 17' long and 70 lbs. Way more boat than I want do deal with these days. 

I have always been enamored with Hobie's "mirage drive" watercraft. You can pedal them! They have adapted this drive to sailboats, SUP's, everything. And this one really caught my eye at the Seattle boat show in late January. 

• Inflatable! It stows in a bag with wheels. So you can take it in the car, use it other places besides on the boat, without having to have a special rack or trailer. And when not in use on the boat it can be stowed away from the elements.  Weight is 40 lbs.
• Super stable. More so than most kayaks.  You can even remove the seat and use it as a Stand Up Paddleboard.
• Great engineering. There's a place for everything, even easy to use clips for the paddle. The seat is kind of like a beach chair. Very adjustable, very comfortable. It comes with the pump, everything fits into the carry bag. (Supposedly takes 10 minutes to pump up.) They make a variety of accessories for fishing, etc. 
• You can pedal - and paddle! I love doing photography from kayaks. Animals just aren't very afraid of you, and you can get much closer than say walking on land. But with a regular kayak, you have to put your paddle down, secure it so you don't lose it, get your camera ready, etc. With this setup I can hold my camera and just approach the subject easily.
• Maneuverability. It has a rudder, and you steer it with a little hand control. And the drive even has reverse! 

The local dealer invited me to come try it out in Lake Union the week after the boat show. Here is the link to this kayak on the Hobie site.

Here is a short video of the pedaling. It was very natural. And I can tell that you can get a workout from it, more so than a regular kayak. This will be a great for us when we are cruising for a few months. One of my friends that cruised the Broughton's last year told us there were so many bears on the beaches that they were often afraid of going to shore. 

The bright yellow didn't do a lot for me though. Luckily they have a more stealthy option, which we ordered.  

In the "Hampton thinks of everything" department, notice this area on each side of the flybridge - perfect for kayaks. Yup, they designed this space to stow water toys! 

Adding a little more info regarding the posts over the past couple of days, the "Tale of the Turtles" as well as the stone yard visit... The picture above is the area under the flooring for the VIP head. This head, the master head, and the galley, all have their floors heated with a circuit that is part of the diesel furnace heat. 

So toasty warm floors. It's a bit of a luxury, but for those of us living in the PNW with stone floors, we know how special it is to have them heated. Hampton does a lot of these "little things" right. 

The video above shows the usage of the pilothouse doors. Sorry about having to click through, but anyway it's kind of interesting.  Once the video starts on Youtube, zoom up to the 5 minute mark, and watch for about 30 seconds.

PH doors are vital for boating operations. You want to be able to quickly get to both sides of the boat during docking, anchoring, etc. These doors should be watertight and be able to stand up to the elements. There are many types of doors out there, often sliding doors. These generally get hard to slide in time though.

Hampton chooses to go with what they call "aircraft doors," because they resemble the big doors on an airliner. They are very secure but relatively easy to operate.

Here one of the craftsmen test fits the door frame. 

Now the door is placed in the frame, and the whole assembly will be mounted onto the boat. An impressive piece of machinery for sure.