An email from a legend.

Today, as I was surfing the net, I came across a quote in google that "Nelson/Merek did NOT design this vessel..."

I had seen this come up in a forum before, and hoped to get to the bottom of it. So, I found Charley Morgan's email address in Florida and posed the question. Here's the copy of the email & reply a couple of hours later:

From: Jim Cochran [mailto:mxsailor@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 12:17 PM
To: Charley@charleymorgan.com
Subject: The 43 CC mid to late 80s

Dear Charley,

The 43 CC mid to late 80s
I am restoring one of these boats.
There is much discussion about who designed this boat. Could you clear
up this issue?

Thanks,
Jim Cochran

proud owner
33 O/I 1973
43 CC 1987
San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico

From: charley@charleymorgan.com
Subject: RE: The 43 CC mid to late 80s
Date: July 8, 2008 11:51:10 AM GMT-07:00
To: mxsailor@gmail.com
Reply-To: charley@charleymorgan.com

Jim,

The model is not my design.

It has always been my understanding that the design was by Nelson & Merrick, but since I was long since retired from the scene, I cannot be certain. Nelson & Merrick was a top-flight design firm.

From first hand accounts by those who delivered some of this model to the charter fleets, they were fast, seaworthy and well behaved. I believe that Catalina made a variant or two from the basic design.

Hope this is some help to you. Cheers and smooth sailing ~ Charley Morgan


Charles E.(Charley) Morgan

And although I didn't get an absolute answer, I feel like I'm closer to the truth than the guy who keeps saying this boat wasn't... etc. BTW, this person never does reveal WHO he thinks did the design. I know that the same hull was used for the Morgan 44, and that N/M did design the Catalina 42 (Catalina had just bought Morgan Yachts around the mid-80s), of which there are over 1,000 hulls. I wonder if N/M will answer this question? Check back.

From the desk of Bruce Roberts

Bruce Roberts is a yacht designer who has the same vision as I. He likes big, fast, roomy yachts. Although I hadn't spent a lot of time familiarizing myself with his work, I found that a quick jaunt to Bruce Robert's website provided a number of drawings and photos of features that I like for the FLASH.

The "poop stern" offers volume and easy passageways below. I also want a deck saloon. The FLASH version of this design would offer a sugar scoop transom and a hydraulic swim platform/dinghy storage (more about this later).
One design element I really like is the small twin chair/table setting in the deck saloon...


Here is an unfinished hull/cabin done in aluminum. It's his "DS 495" and what I was looking for in a design for the FLASH. I'm willing to give up the wraparound windows (note to Rob) because this look works so well.


Starting to get excited about this again. OooooWeeeee.

Saloons, boats and bars

The deck saloon design is the one I'm favoring right now. Wraparound, reinforced, tinted windows. This design suggests the raising of the stern quarters to add volume below and easy passage from the saloon to the masters cabin astern.
By the way, some people may chuckle at my use of the word saloon. The truth is back a couple of centuries ago, a bar owner in Colorado (I believe) decided to furnish his bar like the interior of a yacht to attract high class customers. He borrowed the word saloon- the main cabin and social gathering place on a yacht- and soon, many tavern owners followed his example.

It can't be tarps...

Spent a morning hoisting up a tarp over my work area just before I left for Errorzona. This is what it looked like.

Now it's lying on the ground, shredded along the edge where I had tied it with cordage. Tarps just won't do it. If I'm going to have shade, it will be more than a tarp. I'm thinking of beefing up the vertical 2x4s and adding cross members for wood or metal roofing.

There was a big blow here with rain, so now the boat needs pumping out... but not today.

We drove back last night and it seemed to take forever. There's road construction all the way up and back... they divert traffic from four lanes onto one each way and prohibit passing- for 300 miles! You can't go faster than the slowest vehicle in front of you... so the trip took seven hours instead of the usual four-and-a -half. I need a siesta.

I'll go out to the Flash tomorrow and restart the work. It'll be cooler, now that the monsoons are here.

I wanna go home...

Today is my second day in the US. We drove up yesterday from San Carlos in order to appear at the muni court in Sahuarita, Arizona over a ticket for expired license plates. In Arizona, if your auto insurance isn't renewed, they suspend your registration and hand out tickets. Then they tell you they want you to commit to a 3 year car insurance policy... all for a car that may spend a total of one month in Arizona over the 3 year period. Arrrg..
We got it sorted out when we showed up and paid a fine of $143, got the state of AZ to accept our Mexican car insurance as proof of financial responsibility, re-registered the car, jumped through several hoops, and groveled at the feet of Authority.
I want to reduce my trips to the US. I'm going to start planning the "Stuff in America Reduction Act."
The US is a nice place if you have to have everything really organized and you want your life structured and predictable, and it's OK to have everyone have a say in about how you conduct your life... then the US is a good place to be. But I wanna' go home to Mexico.
I think I would like to go to Turkey some day. I read the Ferroever blog and I've met other people who loved Turkey. Folks who have done circumnavigations in small yachts.
Sounds like a cool place. I might make it if I don't get too many more tickets in the US.

My mother needed a boat

Boats make me do things I normally wouldn't do. Pick up after myself, clean my room, put my stuff away, say my prayers... If my mother had a boat, she could send me there... with or without dinner. I would shape up in a hurry, no doubt.
I spent the day (from 7am 'til 11 am) and (4 pm to 7 pm) putting up shadecloth and cleaning the Flash. I found that tripping over my tools, and trash, and broken pieces of fiberglass was no fun. Besides, I'm looking for tanks and I can't find them if they're under 100 tons of garbage. I found a big water tank under a sheet of plywood. How do I know it was a water tank? The big black hose that runs from the deck fill to the tank has printed on it "big black water hose" or something like that... so tomorrow, I'm going to take the gasoline powered high pressure washer I have out to the boat and blast away all the grime and dirt and soot from the fire(s). Then I'll take some more pictures and see if they look any different from these.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I just turned 63 and I thought I should start working on the boat now. It'll be easier to remember how much time I actually put in on this thing if I just start now.
So, I was out at the ranch at 6:45 am, fired up the generator and started cutting fiberglass with my trusty sawzall. I was able to remove the old double cooler box/freezer, cut it in half and hoist it over the side. I cut out the bottom of the cockpit and am trying to figure out how to get it off the boat without giving myself a hernia. Me, the yard and the boat are covered with bits and pieces of fiberglass and at 10 am, I call it quits. Load up some of the trash in the pickup and drive back to the house. It was 85 degrees when I started this morning and it's time to get into the shade and cool off. But now that I'm removing the crappy stuff from the boat, it's opening up and everything looks just a little more possible. Like the story goes, I know there's a pony in there somewhere! For the next few days I'll be tearing out all the rotted and unwanted stuff. I sure am glad I'm doing this in Mexico... and I find that I LOVE this kind of project. The boat was designed to be big and fast. I'm going to use modern materials and techniques to make it faster, lighter, roomier and more agile. Also more ecological and self sufficient. It's great fun and a huge challenge.