WildChild is the name of our Sailboat.
So to give you some of the more specific details for interested people… We tell people that it is a C&C 40…. but it is not actually made by C&C.
OK so that sounds bad. Well it is actually a little complicated.
One of the main yacht designers for C&C yachts in the 1970’s and the 1980’s was a famous naval architect name Doug Peterson. He designed the very popular and successful C&C 36 and then later the C&C 38’s. They were fabulous yachts that really brought C&C to world recognition. In 1979 he took his popular design and made it a little bigger believing that sailboats could offer both performance AND cruising comfort. Mr. Peterson then designed his 40 foot model he named as a new class of yacht called a racer/cruiser.
But in the first few years C&C’s production facilities were maxed out for production capacity and Mr. Peterson had to find someone else to produce the earliest 40 foot models. He found Islander yachts in California. They built from his design what they labeled the Islander P (for Peterson) 40. WildChild is actually a 1981 Islander P40. After just a few short years of production in California C&C increased their production capacity and brought the 40 footer back into their domain. This same design became known as the C&C 40 in later years.
Since it is too complicated to explain all this to people we just say its a C&C 40… because its easier. But people who are familiar with the later model C&C 40’s notice… hey… there is something not quite right about WildChild…. she is like a C&C 40 but laid out inside a little differently. Yep that’s true.
I Lexi actually worked as a boat builder in the Niagara region last year and had the privilege of working with some of the men who actually worked at C&C yachts in its hey day until it burned down in the 1990’s. I gained a lot of valuable knowledge and information about how they were built.
You can see from the side image of WildChild she has exactly the same hull and keel as the C&C 40’s. Same design.
We of course have made modifications to her though to make her extra Ocean worthy.
In Ma
y 2018 in the boat yard we tented her bottom and added half an inch of kevlar and fiberglass to strengthen her hull and keel joint. The one thing you will hear of about older C&C’s is that they develop what has become known as the C&C smile. About a foot down the keel from the bottom where the lead joins the fiberglass they tend to develop a fine crack. Also some of them have developed a crack at the back of the keel joint above the lead where they brought the fiberglass to a fine edge. Sometimes when the keel hits bottom it can split open this edge.
So we super duper reinforced this area. We know that it is inevitable we will someday hit the bottom… and the boat is going to have to take the punishment of open ocean sailing… so we figure stronger is better… People in the boat yard kept asking me what I was doing under there in the tent… My standard reply 
was “I’m building a battleship”… WildChild is now literally bullet proof in this critical area. Strong is good.
WildChild’s original name was Ambush and she spent her life as a race boat. Rich people spent a lot of money on all her sails and winches and performance hardware but basically ignored the inside. As a racer lighter was better. So inside we had to add extra capacity. To make the journey we want to do she needs more water and a bigger waste holding tank.
So I also ripped apart the V-berth and removed the sail storage areas and fiberglassed into the hull a 48 gallon waste tank. This also adds structural support to the nose area. The extra 96 ounces of glass cloth all the way around makes the whole nose more rigid. There are no stringers in this section. 
Above the new waste tank we put two 34 gallon water tanks. One for house drinking water and one tank dedicated to the shower we added. This way having a long shower does not endanger the fresh water supply for drinking.
We also added a very expensive new custom built thick plastic water tank under the salon bench seat. That thing cost us $2000 for 34 gallons of water. The bench tank is fed by the V-berth tank. All the plumbing for the boat is fed out of the bench tank on the side near the kitchen sink.
Another smart thing we did was designed into the boat a rain water collection tank that feeds the cockpit shower. The boat 
will naturally and on its own collect rain water and divert it into its 15 gallon rain water tank under the pilot berth. So that way when we go swimming or scuba diving in salty ocean water we can rinse off with fresh water all we want.
Here are some interior pictures for you just for fun
