Hello fellow Sailors!
We are Derek & Kristin Hieb from Tacoma,WA. For the past 14 months we have been re-fitting a 1981 Pan Oceanic Vision 41 designed by Naval Architect, Ted Brewer. It's a wonderfully designed light ocean cruiser with a pilothouse that even the most discriminating sailor would love. I (K
ristin) will post pics if I can ever remember to get them downloaded off the
camera. That's the problem with these new cameras that can hold over 1000
images on them. Currently we are working on replacing the leaky
teak decks with Kiwi decks non skid system. We're using saturating
epoxy on all the screw holes and making
fiberglass repairs after painstakingly removing and identifying all the headliners, as well as all the
deck hardware, tracks, and stansions. Whew! What a chore! But as you all know, it's a labor of love and we plan to navigate many miles of
offshore cruising on this baby and that's why we're doing it right the first time.
I couldn't have picked a better man than Derek The Rigger as my co-pilot either! He's so well knowedged and skilled in the
trade that I thought I'd better keep him before some other poor gal got her hands on him! Besides that he's good on the sheets! lol We'd been together for a few years when one of my customer's came to me with a huge
family problem: What do we do with her dad's old sailboat? I was thinking it was just a little one, and was about to tell her I could have Derek call her with some ideas, when I thought to ask her first what the
boat was like. Keep in mind, that between the two of us, we already owned 10 boats, so the furthest thing from my mind was having another one given to us. When she described it to me, I about fell over! It sounded like the
boat of our dreams! Since way before we ever laid eyes on eachother we each separately had fantasies about circumnavigating and sailing to far away
ports all over the world, so when we met and started talking about it, we realized we had met the partners that we could live out our dreams together with! The boat is the fruition of this dream and we are both so happy to be able to do the
work required for the
restoration. This beauty had been left tied to the
dock for over 18 years after the previous owner's wife had passed away, I'm sure due to heartbreak. I assured Becky that we would love to go look at the boat today after
work, and if she wants, we'd be able to take possession right away. Well, it worked out to be April 1st, when we officially had the papers, but she was ours the moment we heard about her. God I sure love miracles!
Now, we're working our fingers to the bone to bring her back to all her glory and then some! BTW we are keeping her name as "Vision" and that vision will hopefully be realized by the summer of 2010 when we will sail her away the way she was designed to do... fast and safe!
We'll keep you all posted here and we're so happy to finally join up with all you charming people! We've been reading the posts here for years! lol
Have Wind! Will Sail!
Kristin & Derek
Tacoma, WA s/v Vision