A new boat

I missed the sailing as soon as our last trip was over and resolved when I got back to BC to find a sailboat for local trips and day sailing. Initially, I looked at boats around 30 feet - a Crown 34, then a Cal 2-29, Cal 2-27,  and another Cal-29. While any of these boats could have worked, they all had maintenance issues that I did not feel like tackling or were too big (the Crown 34) or too expensive (the Cal 2-27). I finally settled on something a bit smaller. Smaller boats are usually more fun to daysail, cost less to buy, and take less money and effort to maintain. They are typically available at far below a sane replacement cost perhaps because few people are willing to pay $3000 a year to keep a $3000 boat in a marina, especially when they might only use the boat a few days a year.

In our case, we have a mooring in Maple Bay that costs a few hundred a year to maintain (hiring a diver to inspect and replacing the chain every few years). So the running costs of a small boat make more sense, especially when one has lots of time to use it.

The boat I settled on is a C&C 24 made in Ontario in 1984. I bought her in Sechelt (north west of Vancouver) a week ago, almost 35 years to the day that she was first launched (I have all the original papers on board). This boat weighs about 3000 pounds, so she is a far cry from Raven, which weighs about 7 times as much! She came with 3 decent sails, a dubious battery, a mast compression post issue, and no motor - oh and a family of mice had been living on her but are, I believe, no longer in residence. She has 3 berths all a good length - a double V-berth and two settee berths, a small galley with alcohol stove, sink, and ice box, and a porta pottie for a head. There is not standing head room but you can open the hatch and stand up straight to cook so long as the weather is nice or you have remembered to put a tarp up over the boom.

The trip over to look at her was an adventure itself, mostly because I was determined to sail the boat home if she proved to be suitable and in decent enough shape. To get from Duncan to Sechelt without bringing a car required a complex sequence of hiking, long distance bus to Nanaimo, ferry to Vancouver, another Ferry to the Sunshine Coast, and another bus to Sechelt. This took most of the day and it was around suppertime when I arrived at the boat. I also had to lug a varied assortment of gear with me to fix things on the boat (tools, duct tape, crazy glue...) and clothing to handle a multi day cruise, as well as food preparation (pots and pans, dishes, cutlery, corkscrew), navigation (charts and cruising guide), and sleeping (sleeping bag, pillow). To make things more interesting, the boat did not come with a dinghy, so I bought a cheapie inflatable raft at Canadian Tire and carried that along too.

Yes - it looks like a pool toy, but actually worked out surprisingly well. Even rows into a headwind without issues

The owner's brother met me and allowed me to look over the boat. I then called the owner who was in Hawaii helping arrange a wedding.  We came to an agreement quite easily and I was now the proud owner of a somewhat neglected little boat. I spent Friday and Saturday getting the battery charged, cleaning the boat, laying in food for the trip home, and checking the sails and related equipment to ensure everything worked. Fortunately there was an IGA food store, a liquor store, and a Canadian Tire just across the highway from the marina. I was able to get a rudimentary electrical system working and pick up food that would be easy to re-heat on the simple non-pressurized alcohol stove.

The other minor issue was the lack of motor. The marina is small but there was one dog leg to get through in order to reach the Strait of Georgia. I found an 8 foot long twisted offcut someone had discarded from a 2 by 4 and lashed a canoe paddle from the boat to this with waxed nylon. This gave me a 10 foot oar to scull or row with. On Sunday morning well before sunrise I ghosted out of the marina with a light northerly breeze, using the oar to help her around one bend. The wind picked up in the strait and I had to shorten sail to the small jib about half way across. I sailed to Nanaimo, but the wind was favourable for going south so I transited the narrow and tidal passage called Dodd's Narrows with a nice following breeze and a slight current flooding against us. The boat was a bit bouncy on the crossing but handled a 15 knot beam wind and accompanying chop with aplomb. She is as fun to sail as I had hoped.

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Trip home

That night I spent at De Courcy Island, moving on the next day to the north end of Thetis - a passage that took several hours because there was almost no wind. I did try out my new oar, but could only make at most about one knot using this. The third day I sailed to Montague Harbour on Galiano island, which has a great little hiking trail and beautiful beach.

Wing and wing off Salt Spring island - note the custom whisker pole holding out the genoa

Day four I decided to go for a loop around the south end of Salt Spring Island, but ran out of wind before reaching my intended destination of Cowichan Bay. I had to row for half an hour to get out of the ferry channel near Swartz Bay and anchored beside a little islet off the south end of Salt Spring. Day 5 was forecast to be another day of light and variable winds, but I had just enough wind to run up through Sansum Narrows with a following current and reach my mooring by mid afternoon in time to get back home for band practice.

Drifter on her mooring in Maple Bay - the rowing oar is lashed along the deck.

I dived on the boat today and found that she has a good looking hull without too much paint buildup. The diver who cleaned her for the last owner left a heavy growth of barnacles along the leading and bottom edges of the keel. Apart from that, she is only a little fouled and weedy looking. The 35 year old knot meter even worked after I freed up the paddle wheel!

There are lots of projects to tackle this summer. She needs a new compass, some sort of depth sounder (none was ever installed), and an anchor roller, as well as the mast compression post fix (the base has subsided). I will also install a simple solar system because she has no motor to charge the battery. However, everything seems manageable, mainly because she is such a small boat...