A 44-Year Cruise

Story by Philip Teece

People looking (sometimes rather skeptically) at my 18-foot twin-keeler, Galadriel, often ask, “how far have you sailed in her?” My reply might be that she and I have sailed an epic voyage of forty-four years together.

When I built my little Tucker-designed Caprice in 1967, I was 26 years old. This year I am 70, and my faithful old pocket cruiser is 44. Where have we been and what have we done in those decades together?

Getting to Know Her

In the early days, while I was still cautiously exploring her capabilities, my eighteen-footer carried me into the shallow lagoons and sheltered creek-mouths close to her home berth near Victoria, on Vancouver Island. She ran up Haro Strait, with the stunning volcanic cone of Mt. Baker as a dramatic backdrop, to discover the southern Gulf Islands.

But would she prove to be seaworthy in big open waters? Occasional heavy weather in Juan de Fuca and Haro Straits allowed (or forced) me to test the twin-keeled design’s seakindliness and windward ability. The way she handled strong winds and steep head seas inspired a rapidly growing confidence.

An Enchanted Coast

Galadriel’s cruising ground has been a gift. The British Columbia labyrinth of coastal islands, inlets, narrowly winding sea-channels, and remote anchorages has proved to be an inexhaustible treasure chest. We will never uncover all its contents.

After my first crossing of relatively “big” water, the 35 miles across Georgia Strait from southern Vancouver Island to the lotus-land of beautiful Lasqueti Island, I began eventually to push farther north up the straits and passages of the coast.

Voyages up and down Georgia Strait have been exciting, and often as dream-like as cruises in a tropical paradise. But they have not been without moments of distress. More than once high winds and huge cresting swells have forced emergency overnight anchorage at isolated little Mitlenatch Island. That island, a fascinating marine bird sanctuary, offers no really secure protection on its exposed shores, and always seems to have provided middle-of-the-night misadventures. On one occasion, while struggling to windward up the Strait against near-gale headwinds, Galadriel was actually dismasted, with a following saga that included jury-rigging and a long, desperate slog to safety.

Galadriel has always bypassed the popular destination of Desolation Sound. (If I had wanted to experience Disneyland, I’d have gone to California). North of Desolation Sound most summer cruisers—even the traffic of yachts much larger and more powerful than my tiny sloop—turn back and head for home. For many folks an effective barrier seems to be the daunting tidal rapids, Hole-in-the Wall, Yaculta Rapids, The Arrans, Devil’s Hole—where currents reach a whirling, tumbling twelve knots or more. Galadriel’s simple formula for getting to the quiet, empty regions beyond that wall has been to aim for neap-tide periods of the month, when currents are weak and slake times are long.

Meandering northward beyond the barrier, Galadriel has discovered a world of deep, quiet, empty inlets. Sailing sometimes alone and sometimes in company with a friend’s similarly small boat, my eighteen-footer made her way into Ramsay Arm and the long wildness of Bute Inlet. In those canyons among glaciated mountain walls a new challenge was encountered: the problem of bottomless depths where anchorages were almost unfindable. Here I rejoiced in a fresh advantage of the very small boat, her ability to tuck herself onto a tiny creek-mouth shelf of gravel on the very brink of a hundred-metre abyss.

In the waters still farther north Galadriel found herself in sea and landscapes dramatically unlike the softer environment of Georgia Strait and the Gulf Islands. The drama of channels that wound among soaring peaks and tall, spirelike islands was breathtaking. On one summer’s foray up into those waters, my companion with her own small cruiser and I aboard mine made our way to the headwaters of great Loughborough Inlet, where we rafted together for several nights beneath a towering waterfall with a voice like thunder.

A Northern Home

Inevitably, perhaps, Galadriel’s explorations led to her being based for several years in a new home, a permanent mooring in one of the sheltered coves on wild Sonora Island. In fact, for many months while we built a dwelling cabin on one of the wooded upland slopes, the tiny accommodation aboard my eighteen-footer became, literally, home.

From the northern jumping-off point of Sonora, she spent much time meandering among the labyrinthine channels and the maze of small islands thronging that part of the coast. But a different dimension was then added to our life. For the first time my little tabloid cruiser became not just a recreational sailboat, but a serious work boat. Everything—transport to and from Sonora, access to supplies (at a general store a day’s sail from home), contact with mail outlets and telephone service—depended on the trusty little all-weather Caprice.

What a world she found herself in, on that lovely, complex stretch of coast! My small, shallow-draft twin-keeler was a magic carpet for exploration of the minuscule nooks and crannies among myriad islets. The famous Octopus Islands Marine Park lay only two miles south of my home mooring. Visited in summer by many yachts, that little archipelago was always silent and deserted when I anchored there on warm, sunny autumn and winter days. My favorite destination, a classic “south sea isle,” was Francisco Island, whose shallow coves and swatches of sandy shore were accessible only to small craft such as mine.

Caprice, Designed by Robert Tucker. LOA 18' 4" • Beam 6' 2" • Draft 1' 8" • Ballast 500 lb

How Far?

Galadriel and her 70-year-old skipper continue to sail almost daily, nowadays in her original home waters of Juan de Fuca Strait and Haro Straits, at the southern tip of Vancouver Island. This area, too, abounds in island destinations and hidden anchorages where I still enjoy the magic of summer nights on the hook.

Returning to the questions with which I began: in her 44 years how far has Galadriel sailed? During the first 30-odd years of her life I did not record mileage; the ideal of quantification seemed to clash with my carefree sailing philosophy. In more recent years, however, I’ve succumbed to the practice of day’s-end mileage logging. In just ten years—between 2001 and 2011—the very active old boat has sailed over 20,000 miles. The overall distance of her 44-year voyage, whatever it may be, does not seem bad for a boat that I built as a little “starter” for $1900, back in the now rather misty past of 1967. •SCA•

Regular contributor Philip Teece is the author of A Dream of Islands and A Shimmer on the Horizon.

[Article first appeared Jan/Feb 2012, issue #73]