We joined the Seattle Sailing Club and made extensive use of its daysailing program, with occasional overnight jaunts, and one week-long vacation in the San Juan Islands. In addition, because Randy was regular crew on S/V Sunwood, an Olson 34, there was occasion to bring the boat to/from some distant racing venue, and for many years a chance to convey the boat to/from some distant cruising grounds for the convenience of the owners.
All that came to an end when Randy was invited to tend a crewmate's boat, a Newport 30 Mk III named S/V Dawn Treader, for over a half year while the owner was out of town on sabbatical. Because we had exclusive use of the boat, we didn't have to schlepp our stuff down to the boat and back, just for an overnight trip. We quickly discovered the joys of having all our stuff on board, so that we would only have to add a few perishable items before a trip.
When the owner returned, and we returned custody of the boat, it was obvious that we could no longer get along on OPBs (other people's boats). That started some serious shopping.
Now it happened that while we were using S/V Dawn Treader we stopped by a boats-afloat show on Lake Union. We oohed and ahhed at all the fine boats, but the one which caught our eye was a cruising catamaran built by Performance Cruising, Inc. Randy had mentioned catamarans as an option, but as he had often stated that if he didn't capsize his Hobie every so often, he wasn't sailing close enough to the edge. When Cindy joined him on the boat, both hulls had to stay in the water. We were invited by a broker to go out with three other couples on a day sail, and to Cindy's delight, a cruising cat a was totally unlike the Hobie 16. We were convinced that this was the boat for us.
It took a while to search out the best value, but we ultimately found a boat in Sidney, B.C. which fit the bill. She was being sold by an American couple who had decided to buy a house on Saltspring Island and settle down. Since the first owner had also been American, and the registration and documentation was maintained in the U.S., there was no problem about import duties, etc.
Randy's current project is to document, then rework some of the electrical system. There's nothing seriously wrong, mind you, but it's a good idea to know how things work. (Hint to builders: install conduit, then run wires!)
When Randy was preparing to bring S/V Sunwood back from near Powell River, B.C. in August 1996, he bought a hand-held GPS unit just in case he needed to get back in bad weather. Since that trip he's captured and downloaded the boat's track of all cruises and races. (He initially used some other shareware software, but that fall he wrote a program to do it "his way". It's undergone several revisions over the years, often based on suggestions from other users. If you're a computer type, you're welcome to try it yourself. The raw program, gd2.c, or the two packages, gd2.tgz, gd2.shar, are here for download. It may be the best program extant for non-Microsoft systems.) (Under consideration is a program which would log data from the boat's Autohelm system. Progress will be reported here.)
As time permits, many (all?) of these tracks will be made available for your perusal.
