Cruisers rediscover sailing on home waters in a small boat
Issue 86: Sept/Oct 2012
It is a lovely summer day in the Gulf Islands off Canada’s west coast as our 25-footer pokes her bow out of the marina. We’ve owned this boat for several years, yet this is almost her first venture away from the dock. We’re not uncertain about what we are about. We have owned lots of little boats and canoes and the last one — a classic 50-foot gaff-rigged schooner — carried us around the Pacific.
Safari kati, as we renamed this fiberglass 1970s Folkboat, has been my long-term building project. I have been rescuing her from neglect and refashioning her into my idea of a proper yacht.
The outboard pushes us into Ganges Harbour, where I hoist the jib and main while my wife, Heather, adjusts to steering with a tiller. She struggles a little after wheel steering for so long, but there’s something else as well. After enduring a long rough ride back across the Pacific from Australia in Shiriri, she has shown no interest at all, until now, in sailboats and salt water. The wind is light, the sails fill gently, and we waft slowly past the islands in the bay. I so much want this tentative return to sailing to be a good experience for her. The wind dies behind a headland and the outboard pushes us against the tidal current in a channel and then into a deep bay on Portland Island. There’s a marine park here where we can go ashore in the inflatable that we’ve been towing astern. I check the chart for depth and ease the toy-like anchor into the green water. Our slim boat snubs, stretches out her chain, and slips gently forward again. We grin at each other in the silence. We both recognize the familiarity of this anchoring procedure while noting how ridiculously easy it is in so small a ship. It has been several years since we have anchored in this bay and a much longer time since we have sailed in such simplicity.
Once ashore, we pick apples from an abandoned orchard and walk the trail out to a rocky point. The dry smell of summer grasses and the crunch of slippery arbutus leaves underfoot evoke memories of an earlier life: summer camping with our children in these islands, canoe trips, and sailing our open dory in the brisk sea breeze.
From the beacon on the point, we note the calm ocean surface is rippled in patches and these patches are growing. This afternoon’s sea breeze is developing and promises a good sail home. We take our time, though, eat our picnic lunch, and eventually row back to our waiting boat. There we retrieve our anchor and raise the sails. In the shelter of the forested side of the bay, we barely pick up a draft, but as we coast out we gather speed.
Around the point we sail, back through Navy Channel once more and into the white-capped bay. Our boat heels, the sails fill roundly, and we plunge into the waves. A deep-keeled boat, Safari kati heels easily, then stiffens and starts to move in a steady rush. We smile once more because our schooner — with her big mains’l, fores’l, forstays’l, and jib all working smoothly together — would find this a pleasant sailing breeze. This, in comparison, is both simple and exciting. We feel every wave we splash through. We feel the tiller alive in our hands.
Down the companionway, I can see the main cabin, unrecognizable now from the decayed ruin it once was, with its smart upholstery, bright white surfaces, and the two curved mahogany mirrors we saved from the schooner. Up here in the breezy cockpit, I feel proud of all my work, a good companion to this unpretentious Folkboat I have spent so many hours working on. I glance at Heather beside me as she concentrates on her steering and see contentment there also.
“Swoosh, ahhh,” says our ship as she parts the waves. She too is back in her natural element at last. We are all back where we belong.
Bill and Heather Gardam sold their big gaff-rigged schooner, Shiriri, after a long Pacific voyage and quickly replaced her with a Folkboat for Bill to work on. They now sail close to home in the Canadian Gulf Islands and enjoy the excitement of a little ship once more. Bill has been a teacher, park ranger, youth counselor, back-to-the-lander, and CUSO volunteer in South America. He writes a blog, Dragongate, at http://gardheim.blogspot.com.
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