Crossing Hecate Strait to the Queen Charlotte Islands.

Greetings From Songline

Greetings and welcome to our blog. In the summer of 2003 we purchased Songline, a 36' steel sailboat manufactured by Waterline. We knew we wanted to go on a cruising adventure but didn't really know exactly where and when. In 2004 we took her up to the Queen Charlotte Islands. In 2005 we went around Vancouver Island and in 2006 we did a short but pleasant trip to Victoria and the Gulf Islands. Songline is our first boat and we bought her with very little sailing experience. We hired a very good instructor to spend five days helping us to get to know the boat. Since then we've spent about 8 months total cruising the waters of British Columbia.
The end of April 2007 will be our launch date for a cruise to the South Pacific and New Zealand. Meanwhile we spend very little time sailing while preparing for the trip. The details that need to be dealt with are seemingly without end. Making sure everything is properly dealt with is very time consuming. Insurance is a problem unless we are willing to take extra crew which we do not want to do. However most of the big hurdles are behind us and it's just a matter of pushing ahead until the last of the details are complete.

Three Weeks to Go,

With three weeks to go everything (except our passports) are looking good. Canada has completely dropped the ball with issuing new passports. Getting them is using up lots of time that could otherwise be spent working on the boat.
Songline is back in the water after spending 5 days on the hard at Mosquito Creek. New bottom paint and zincs, a bit of grease in the prop and a quick polish of the topsides. We keep packing equipment and provisions onto her. The waterline is slowing going down. Dale Sanders has agreed to come along with us to San Francisco. This will make the trip down the coast much easier.

Last Minute Repairs

I took the boat out with the family last Sunday for a harbour cruise and to do a quick test to make sure everything was working properly. Ignorance is bliss. I should have left it tied to the dock. The transmission started to slip. It's probably been slipping for a while but became abundantly obvious on Sunday. After two missing knuckles, a sore back and the usual assortment of expletives I managed to wrestle it out of the boat. Now I'm scrambling to get it repaired. Everyone tells me that I'm lucky that it happened here. That's like being lucky you had a heart attack in front of the emergency ward.

Peter

The Boat

For those interested in our boat Songline please read on. I'll try not to make this too boring. She is steel, round chine cutter manufactured in Sidney BC by Waterline Yachts. When we bought her she was well rigged and equipped for lond distance cruising. We've had a storm jib made and added a parachute anchor to her inventory. I've changed the charging system around to include a high capacity alternator and automatic charge relays. She has 3-90W solar panels which seem to work quite well keeping the 400A of house batteries charged. I added a SCS-IIusb PACTOR III modem to the iCOM 710 SSB. Unfortunately we had to go to the "dark side" and buy a Windows laptop. We had the radio opened up for HAM frequencies. I really like the way the systems works. Getting weather information, sending and receiving emails and voice communications all seem to work very well. It is however electronics and I know well enough that if it keeps working for even a week or two I'll consider it lucky. We have a Village Marine water maker. Probably one of the best pieces of equipment on the boat is the hard dodger. It extends over the entire length of the cockpit. When we first bought the boat I was considering having it removed. It didn't look very "yachtie". Soon after that while heading up Georgia Strait I noticed the crew on a boat beside us all wearing foul weather gear while I still had my t-shirt on. The notion of removing the dodger quickly waned. We have pressure hot and cold water but no shower. Out on deck for that. I wanted to install a below decks autopilot but didn't have time or money. We do have a Monitor wind vane steering system which should, from everything we hear, become one of our best friends. There's a diesel heater but for the South Pacific I might as well pack the boat with down sleeping bags and parkas. We have all the required safety gizmos like EPIRB, flares, 6 man life raft etc.

Peter