Juli Designs

Recently I discovered Juli Gothly's delightful boat shop in Sailor's Cove and, immediately, I wanted to know more about the person behind the shop. So I asked Juli to tell us about herself, her life in Sailor's Cove and her boats. Here is her story............

"I like online games and used to play a lot. But most of the games are the same, you kill monsters and your level goes up and so on. Of course communication with other players is a big part of it, too. One day I had enough of killing monsters, so I started SL - lol.

As I am from Japan (in case you couldn't tell from my accent - lol) I started in a Japanese sim and had a little house and a little shop there. Then I found out about the United Sailing Sims through Taku Raymaker, the owner of Waypoint Yacht Club. For a long time it was my daily thing to sail from WYC to Sailor's Cove (that was before the USS joined to the mainland.)

As you get near to Sailor's Cove, you can see the bay with a shop (very fortunately, it is my shop now), moored boats then more shops along the bay. I just loved the atmosphere. One day Taku told me that there was a shop vacant there so I jumped on it. It was December, 2008. Fanci was kind enough to let me move to the shop at the end of the pier when it became vacant a few months after that.

In regards to boats, I am not a yachts-only lover, I love any water craft. When I knew there were yachts in SL, I went to get one. But it was too difficult to handle so I decided to build one for myself. The first one I built was an America's Cup-class yacht with motor. The sails were there but didn't move. My yachts had the Tako scripts until Mothgirl released the Fizz3. My existing yachts all have the Fizz3 scripts.

As far as the boat design goes, I don't enjoy making replicas or reproductions at all, although some of my boats are based on ones that exist in real life. There are far better people around than I for the reproductions. For example, I buy Trudeau's when I want a classic yacht reproduction. I actually own a few of them. Or Black Spot if I want to have even older ones. And, yes, I do have some of them, too ;)

I have my own method of hull design, curve and balance which may not be perfectly reproduced by the prims but I try anyway. It is about the overall visual balance. The deck may slope down from the bow and it may be counter-balanced by the curve of the cabin top, etc.

I am not a sailor in real life. I am a canoe person (or I used to be anyway) - Surfski and OC1 to be precise. Surfski is the fastest paddling ocean craft used by the lifeguards. OC stands for Outrigger Canoe, 1 is for single.

They are both sit-on-top-type canoes, therefore suitable in places like Hawaii. I actually make OC1, OC2 and OC6 in SL (no one buys them though - lol.) My OC6 is probably one of the most fun boats in SL. It is for six people and everybody can stop paddling individually and the boat speed corresponds to the amount of people paddling as well.

You asked about my shops in other locations. I think I was rushing too much. Of course, when you are selling things, good sales would cheer you up. I tried to expand Juli Designs by having branches and vendors but I am closing them one by one. It didn't suit me. I would like to have my shop only at Sailor's Cove now.

I have my parcel in Fishers Island which I call my workshop. As the name suggests, I have my work space up in the sky although it has a security orb. Nothing is secret about what I make but I wouldn't like to have my thing copy-botted while I am working on it.

I also enjoy doing the garden there very much. I may plant something which is out of season due to my ignorance but I love gardening. I'd love to have a nice garden and lots of animals (static of course - lol) as much as the prim allows. You will see a lot of roses there soon :)"

Thank you very much :)

Juli Gothly

Thank YOU, Juli, it was a pleasure to meet you!

Juli Designs is located at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sailors%20Cove/207/55/22