Welcome!
Who and Why?
We are a family of four (Gavin, Jenn, Nathan and Julia) embarking on an offshore sailing adventure leaving in August 2018. We currently live in Lynn Valley in North Vancouver, British Columbia. We have rented out our house and will soon be cutting the docklines to spend time together as a family as we navigate our way to the South Pacific and beyond.
Gavin and I grew up cruising with our families on summer vacations in the Pacific North West in Howe Sound, Desolation Sound and the Gulf Islands of British Columbia. We even went on a first date after meeting at sailing school when we were 12.
We’ve both always loved sailing and sailboat racing – first as junior sailors then on to keel boats. Gavin especially loved racing and joined the club race team for several years, and even raced internationally and represented Canada in a couple of World Championships.
Then as life and careers unfolded we found ourselves continuing to enjoy racing – on friends’ keel boats to start, then on to our own keel boats. Many fun years of racing around the Pacific North West. We also developed a love for cruising, spending our honeymoon and then many summers exploring the beautiful British Columbia coast both before and after kids.
Offshore sailing has always been in our dreams – something we knew we would do- just something that I thought we would be doing later – much later- once the kids left home. And after MUCH discussion (or was it negotiation?) we are now finding ourselves trading in our comfortable Lynn Valley lifestyle and careers (for now) for an adventure with our young family. This has not been an easy decision (especially for me as I very much enjoy my career) but we are making it happen! We are thrilled to have this opportunity to explore the world with our young family.
The Boat – Sundeer 60
Sundeers were designed by Steve and Linda Dashew – the legendary offshore designers and sailors who have sailed offshore and have been designing and sailing boats offshore for decades. They literally wrote the ‘book’ on offshore cruising: The Offshore Cruising Encyclopedia in addition to many other books and publications. Their boats are designed with an eye to safety, performance sailing (200 mile plus days) and a plethora of practical design features built from experience in offshore environments. Sundeers were built by TPI (Tillotson Pearson Industrial Composites) who happens to be the same builder as our previous boat, a J40. This gives me comfort as I liked the build quality of the J40 for the most part. A more fulsome description of the Sundeer can be found here: http://wavetrain.net/boats-a-gear/306-sundeer-60-an-ideal-bluewater-cruising-boat.
We purchased Slingshot (formerly Avalon) in Oahu Hawaii in 2017 and then Gavin, my Dad and two friends sailed her back to Point Roberts, Washington. Gavin has spent the past year doing countless upgrades, projects and refitting. It is hard to believe that we will be setting sail on her soon!
Great website! Cant wait to see all the great pics from your incredible journey. Stay safe!
Thanks Col – am so glad you like the website. it is a work in progress and definitely new ground for me! Miss you! J
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Hi Slingshot this is Dogbark! Found your blog- really cool! Just wanted to let you know that I, Talia, am writing a blog post about kid boats and doing shoutouts, wondering if it’s ok to link to your blog along with a few other kid boat blogs! It was great cruising with you!
Hi Talia – we’d love to have you link to our blog. We had a great time cruising with you and can’t wait to read your blog post! Fair winds and hope you enjoy the rest of your adventure! Jenn and family