Some of our thoughts and thanks: There is a substantial amount of data presented in the following sections. There are two major rationales for such detail. The first, being the original idea, was to share with friends and those who are interested in going down the same route we went with a new Hylas (or other yacht), our research, our decisions and ultimately, our specifications. The second, is that the "process" of documenting our efforts provides us with a wealth of information and detail concerning all aspects of our own yacht. Information, experience has taught us, is important to have but easily lost or forgotten unless it is consolidated and organized.

We look at this as a continuing, or should we say "endless" process. (One thought that we would like to share with anyone contemplating doing something similar is to make sure that whatever web hosting environment and languages you choose, that the entire process be supported "off-line", that is, that you can continue to document, change or otherwise enhance, and most importantly, have immediate access to all you web information on your local machine. )

For those embarking on specifying the details of their own yacht, we hope that some of the information presented here is as helpful as that which we received from friends and other knowledgeable people in the industry. We hope that it may act as a starting point for someone else's efforts. We were fortunate in that we had both verbal and documentary guidance from our friends Liza and Alan on Heartsong III, the very first Hylas 54 (Hull #1). We also had very valuable input from Dave and Lenora Mountain, on Midnight, who shared with us their specifications for their new "dream" boat.

We spent approximately one year, planning , researching, designing, ferreting out specifications, talking with vendors and previous owners, reading, asking a lot of questions of a lot of people, and ultimately, in some cases, making hard choices and compromises. This list of people that supported us in this process is way too long to publish, but we would like to take the time to give special thanks to the following individuals:

Principal Players	Association	Organization	Web Sites
Roger Burroughs	European Hylas Distributor	Hylas Yachts, LTD. +44 (0) 20 7834 8651 +44 (0) 20 7582 6060 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7592 9374 Email: info@hylasyachts.com	www.hylasyachts.com
Liza and Alan Ferro-Gillespie	Sailing Friends	Heartsong III, Hylas 54 Hull #1	www.HeartSong3.com
Dave and Lenora Mountain	Sailing Friends	Midnight
Dick & Kyle Jackney	USA Hylas Distributor	Hylas Yachts 800 875-5114	http://www.hylasyachtsusa.com
Sam Lewis	Agent and Commissioning Mngr.	Hylas Yachts (954 269-3226 Pager; Cell 954 205-2482 Cell)	http://www.hylassales.com/
Joseph Haung & Jane Cheng	President and Owners	Queen Long Marine
Mike Chen	Factory Manager	Queen Long Marine
Tim Woodhouse	President	Hood Sails	www.Hood-sails.com
Steve Cruz	Agent	North Sails
Nigel Calder	Consultant	Author and Expert in boat systems
Chuck and Phil	Tech and Sales Staff	PYI	www.PYIInc.com
Terry Startsman	Director of Technical Support	Raytheon (703) 938-4409	www.Raymarine.com
John Hartnett	Product Support Specialist	Raytheon (800) 539-5539	www.Raymarine.com