It took just under two years of work, from the keel laying ceremony with Nate Hardy of the San Francisco Fire Department, to launching that city's new fireboat, built here in Seattle by my client, Vigor. The hardest part of photographing the construction of the new boat? The final beauty shots of her during sea trials in Elliot Bay just off of downtown Seattle. Luckily the weather gods cooperated as did the boat's powerful water canons - when they were fired up, even a few hundred feet above them in a noisy helicopter, we could hear their power.