After a summer of sailing in Desolation Sound, the sailing bug had bitten deeply and we were entranced with possibilities. YouTube has lots of videos of folks who have bought a boat and taken off. Old boats and new boats, there are challenges either way. We started our search on a bit of a wild goose chase, looking at new boats. Very expensive, but my thought was that we were not getting any younger, and spending time fixing a boat was time and experience wasted. One boat intrigued me, a Sirius 35DS. The size seemed huge, but the accommodations, at least in the photos, appeared ideal. Downsides were cost and the waiting time: 2½ years. Our names were penciled in for a May 2025 delivery. Mentally, I had us picking up the boat in Europe in May 2025 and spending a season sailing the Baltic, then a season around the UK, then maybe the Med via the canals of Europe, and then… the list went on and on. Darrell was less enthusiastic.
At the end of February 2023, we went off to the Vancouver Boat Show to look at alternatives. We saw the usual mix of fantastic plastics and were dismayed at the fit and finish of these expensive boats, few of which were really appropriate for blue water cruising.
Salish Sequel, a 1989 Taswell 43, was the 2023 BCA demonstration boat. On boarding her, we were immediately captivated by her beauty, solidity, and build quality. Suddenly an older, more robustly-built boat seemed very interesting. What was out there? What should we look for? Around the same time Darrell came up with a YouTube video discussing whether to buy new or refit. The balance really came down hard on the refit side of things. We also found Rick Page’s book Get Real, Get Gone, and I realized that we should keep it simpler. We anticipated that it could take 12 to 18 months to find the right boat.
We trawled the internet, initially focused on BC based boats. My process was:
- Find a boat that looked interesting
- Find and join the Facebook group of that boat model
- Lurk and read as much as you can about that boat’s good and bad aspects
- Ask a few questions.
- Go see the boat
I joined a lot of groups, the most notable being the Slocum 43 and the Passport 40 groups. People are passionate about their choices, and all had good reasons why their chosen boat was the best option. A repeated refrain in adverts for boats: “just back” from a world cruise and ready to go again. The owners might have limped home with their near broken boat a decade ago, the boat had been moldering away since then, and their emotional attachments had them pricing according to their memories, not the reality. Many boats that we viewed were refit projects.
After finding nothing suitable in BC, I started trawling further afield. We eventually planned to go see a Slocum 43 in La Conner and a Passport 40 down in Seattle. Then I got this message from the Passport 40 group: if you are seriously looking, my Passport 40 might be your boat. This boat was in Anacortes: now we had three boats to view. Our day trip went back down to two boats when we heard that the Seattle Passport 40 had received a bad survey and needed a lot of work.
On paper, both remaining boats seemed very reasonable. The Slocum 43 had incredible paperwork that the owner (now based in Portugal) had sent me. It’s advantages were that it was Canadian registered, the teak decks had been removed, and there were incredibly detailed maintenance records. Whilst it had been on the hard since the start of COVID, I was assured that the owner was coming over in a few weeks and that the boat would be floating and operational in a few days. When we saw her, our hearts sank. Despite the great care the previous owner had given her, several years on the hard had not been kind. The sails and rigging were toast, the decks were flooded as the scuppers were blocked, and the interior was a shambles. Not what we were hoping for.
On to see the Passport 40. What a beauty. In tip top condition for her age, well maintained and fitted out. The owners had a dream, bought Endless Song, and refitted her to their ideals. After spending a season in Alaska, life got in the way. She then sat for a year at the marina. Much as they were not ready to sell her, their commitments had them firmly ashore for the foreseeable future. An underused boat is a dying boat so Endless Song needed new caretakers. Had to be the right people and we fitted the bill. Roomy and spacious, with a glorious teak interior, our boat had found us. A second trip down followed, this time with our son Simon, who knows a good bit more about boats than we do. By the end of that visit, we had shaken on a deal, subject to survey.
Finding a reputable surveyor with time available took a while and ended up being a two-part process, one for a quick hull survey when she was hauled for pre-planned bottom paint and some minor repairs, and the second for a sea trial and interior survey. The survey and sea trial came up with no serious issues, other than a list of maintenance items to be addressed. We agreed on a final price and now the process started to find a 40’ slip in BC so that we could move her to Canada.
GoldStream Boathouse Marina (just below the Goldstream park on the Malahat highway) was fantastic in offering us a mooring. I love this small, well-run marina. Out of the way and delightfully protected, we were over the moon to have a slip. The delightful folks at Anacortes Marine Transfers handled the transfer process efficiently and by late May she was ours. It would take many more months for the Canadian paperwork to be finalized, but we were free to take her.
The previous owners kindly spent a day teaching us how to manoeuvre this apparently enormous vessel, which honestly backs up like a drunken elephant. Currents, winds, all affect her and with no rhyme or reason as to why. A few days later, we were off! Simon joined us for the trip back to Vancouver Island and we spent a delightful couple of days sailing through the San Juan Islands. We were really taken with how many mooring balls are present, and thought that the options for pump outs of black tanks was admirable. BC needs to follow suit and add more mooring balls and a lot more pump out stations.
Our first port of call in BC was Sidney, to go through customs and immigration, and to provision for the final leg of our trip. Sidney was a very tight marina for our first docking with a big boat and it didn’t go very well. I managed to scrape her hull on one of the pylons as we backed out. Very embarrassing; we now use way more fenders.
Heading out from Sidney, at this point hungry and needing food, we were hailed and boarded by the RCMP. This proved comical, as we were in a newly Canadian boat that still had USA registration and AIS, and was being driven by three South African accented folk. When they asked for our passports it took the policeman a while to realize that we were naturalized Canadians. We kept calm as they went through their processes, including having to repeat the process when their cell phone cameras wouldn’t cooperate. Sometime around 9pm, we finally anchored in Princess Bay, had supper, and then a very good night’s sleep.
The next morning, we dropped Darrell off at the BC Ferries terminal at Swartz Bay to go back home for her commitments. Simon and I sailed into Todd Inlet for the last night of our trip. The next day we berthed her in Goldstream. Endless Song was now in Canada. It was now time to address that long list of maintenance items.