Calgary Club Night – Port Townsend to New Zealand: Small Boat, Big Seas

Would you go down the west coast and across the South Pacific in a 24 foot boat?

In July 2011, Jim Heumann and Karen Sullivan left Port Townsend aboard Sockdolager, a Pacific Seacraft Dana 24, for an open ended cruise, knowing only that they wanted to go south and west, and wanted to cross an ocean. Within two weeks of leaving home they found themselves hove-to 100 miles off the coast of Oregon, in the biggest storm they would encounter on the whole trip. They continued down the coast, making a number of stops, before arriving in Mexico for the winter. In March of 2012 they departed Baja Mexico for the Marquesas in French Polynesia. Thirty-seven days later, they made landfall.

For the next six months they island-hopped across the South Pacific, finally making landfall in New Zealand in early December 2012. This talk will explore some of the lessons they learned about long-term small-boat cruising, handling a small boat in big seas, and they’ll share insights about themselves, including, among other things, how to get home.