Route Plan

This route is a "rough" plan using routing planning software for the expected wind pattern for the time we'll be out. It also provides 5-6 days non-stop from exiting Juan de Fuca up to QC City. The remainder of the trip will depend on timing, crew schedules,etc.

At minimum we hope to stop mid-island and then at Ucleulet [ perhaps Bamfield also?]. Again, this is all very preliminary until I"ve confirmed timing and crew availability, etc.

Planning to get ready - bulletin #1

During our house sitting of Terry's house on Saltspring during January, one of my tasks was to go through the never-ending TODO list of boat chores and prioritize those that need to be done for the QCI trip.

I did that and tried to put some realistic estimates for the effort for each task (using the boat factor: a task that would be 1-2 hours at home will be at least 1/2 day on a boat). The result was a list of 22 days worth of work of #1 priority tasks.... a bit of a surprise.

These range from repairing the leaking sink drain to installing the repaired wind direction/speed transducer onto the mast-head. Major work like installing and re-wiring a new electrical panel will be done post-Trip; also post-poned is the plan to re-configure the salon into a dinette arrangement. We both had visions of getting 1/2 way into either of these projects and finding a major glitch that would impact being ready for the Trip. These will be good fall projects; i.e. we can walk away without impacting our sailing season!

I only managed to re-build one hatch cover over the winter and have put the other 2 covers down to level 2 priority; i.e. will try to get it done before winter but likely after the QCI trip ( i''ll refer to this as the Trip in future ).

At the moment I have small jib at the sailmakers for repairs and the original large genoa in to be recut to smaller. (it was a 130% and will end up at about 110%). We have found that Tatoosh sails much better with smaller jib rather than large genoa ( at least more comfortable to handle) without sacrificing much speed. These and storm sails will be tested in various combo's before the Trip.

I've also received our series drogue from Australia and we need to test rigging and retrieving this wee beastie. The US coast guard recommended this type of drogue after much study which you can read at the drogue vendor's site: www.seriesdrogue.com

Robin and I expect to be out on the coast about April 6 or so; as well as working, we will be doing a bunch of training exercises to get Robin up to speed. She is planning on taking the next level of ISPA training and prudently wants to hone her skills before getting onto a strange instructor's boat. She has been studiously going through our old ISPA notes.

Stay tuned! I will try to upload a screen shot of the planned route for the Trip as well as a task list for priority 1 tasks to give you a flavour of what is in store for April.

New Trip - background & Crew

I decided to start another blog to share the upcoming trip in Tatoosh. The "VIA" trip around Vancouver Island in 2006 was to have included some offshore days to act as a dry run for last years trip to Hawaii. Circumstances didn't allow the offhshore componant on that trip and my "3 month" contract in Saudi Arabia was extended such that virtually no sailing happened last year, never mind a trip to Hawaii! Robin and I got out for 2 weeks in November before putting Tatoosh to bed for the winter and that was the extent of sailing for 2007. By the way, the planned re-naming of Tatoosh is being postponed until we have her up on the hard to repaint the red strip. [ I am too cheap to put on letters now and then have to replace them when we repaint in the fall] The current plan is to organize a short ( 5 days or so) offshore run to act as a dry run [ more on this later] for the trip to Hawaii next year. Life is moving on, I'm not getting younger and if this is really going to happen, I need to keep the ball rolling. Rather than just sail west into the Pacific and return, we will do a large arc from Juan de Fuca and go to the QCI. Hopefully we can get visiting permission and tour the Hadi Gwai area before returning down the west coast of Vancouver Island. Timing is not firmed up but it will be mid-July after we return from my niece's wedding in Nova Scotia at the end of June.

THE CREW

There will be four of us; my youngest son Neil, my friend Ralph (the navigation instructor among other talents) and Robin's brother Terry from Saltspring.

Ralph was crew for the complete VIA trip in 2006; Neil has limited sailing experience but is signed-up for the Hawaii trip so he will be getting his 'sea legs' on this trip - hopefully he will stay signed-up after this trip is over! Terry has sailed with us a few times in the past and this will be his first off-shore venture.