On March 8, several Fleet members brought small useful gadgets that they’d bought at the Vancouver Boat Show for “Show & Tell”, and Dani demonstrated a Thermos brand thermal cooker. Fleet Coordinators Connie & Daragh gave a presentation on “Clearing in and out of foreign countries” based on their own offshore experiences.

Thermal cooker

For “Show & Tell” on March 22nd Stefa showed a galley belt that she had sewn from sunbrella remnants and also sheet pockets she had made for the cockpit. The presenter from Ralph’s Radio for “Satellite-based communications for offshore” didn’t show up, so Daragh facilitated a group discussion on this topic as well as use of HF radio for weather information.

Sewing projects

There was a good turnout of Fleet members for the Vancouver Island Fleet Boat Tours on the weekend of March 25/26. On Saturday members toured four Fleet boats in Sidney that are offshore ready (or almost so), and on Sunday toured another three Fleet boats in Victoria. These tours were useful for getting information and ideas from the boat owners about how they’d rigged and outfitted their boats, the problems they’d solved and the changes they’d made to prepare their boats for offshore.

On March 29 Brian Short gave a presentation to Fleet on “Electrical Systems” which had been re-scheduled from February 8 when our Fleet meeting was cancelled because of snow.

The meetings and activities remaining in this Vancouver Island Fleet year are:

• April 9 – Fleet Boat Tour (Nanaimo)
• April 12 – AIS, Google Earth and Electronic Navigation Tools
• April 19 – Passage Planning Victoria to Mexico
• April 22/23 – VI Fleet Rendezvous (Montague Harbour)