A Dream to Circumnavigate

To circumnavigate my parents boat.

In theory, it is possible and will make a great story. In practice, I haven't yet got a successful mile into the project, though.

When my dad died in 1992, he left my mom the sole owner of their joint built 36 foot Airex core, fiberglass sloop. After a generous family discount, I bought the boat from my mom and the dream to circumnavigate began to ferment, especially when inebriated with friends, colleagues, family, hockey buddies, lovers or charter clients. What a beautiful, solid boat were the comments on the first round and yes she's solid from the first step aboard. What a beauty, lovely mahogany interior joinery, finished to the finest sheen by my mothers talents. Her hull is smooth and curves like the fairest woman. I bet your dad took her a long way before he died. Well, not so far, twice around Vancouver Island and a bit up the coast. (I've yet to make it half around the Island so perhaps that is so far) But I bet he wanted to take it far. I'm not sure about that, my father never told me whether he wanted to sail his boat a long way. My mother didn't, she got scared of the big waves and cold winds. That's not a problem, lots of honourable women have the good sense to be afraid of the open ocean. I never knew about my father though, I was never sure if he wanted to sail a long way. He sure could build a mean boat though, or rather, he built two real mean boats.

Well then you should sail it around the world Jim. Ha ha, such are the words of rum drunk at the dock. Well then you should sail it around the world Jim. Haven't I heard those words before. Yah yah yah, but after enough times the plan is fleshed out and what a boat load of volunteers I've got to sail from one tropical paradise to the other, in an unbroken line of fun. But this is a really solid boat you know, and this boat can take on any ocean in any world. Any boat built in a Campbell River backyard can sail down the coconut trade winds. This boat, Island Prism, is made to sail any ocean in any world. She's built to sail the five capes around the world. South to the Cape Horn, hard left, past Cape Town, past the 2 capes on South Australia and past the fifth Cape on South New Zealand and back up the Pacific through all the coconut isles. Wait a moment, what the hell you been drinking Jim? Well give me a call, Jim, when you're a bit more sober and if you get to those coconut isles.

I suppose one has to be a bit tough to want to sail the Southern Ocean, four months to get from Cape Horn to Christchurch, if you can make it non-stop. Look at all those sailors dressed in rubber head to toe, ice in the water, frozen spray on all the decks. Waves as large as waves get on this world and winds never calm. That looks like tough sailing. I'm proud to consider myself tough. I fix helicopters in the Arctic, year round, year in, year out. Some days it's very cold, and sometimes I have to fix the helicopter outside when it' s that cold. I fly along with the chopper when it flies into the Arctic, and that's when I consider myself tough. As a rule of thumb when it's 30 degrees calcium below zero, most likely something on the chopper will break. At 40 degrees below zero, something will break. Usually the heater or the ground support heater. That's when your head is used to fix things, that's when I'm proud to be tough enough to solve difficult problems in difficult situations. So I think I'm tough enough to sail that tough boat four months in the tough Southern Ocean. But in the austral summer months, that is. No need to work winters in the Arctic and sail winters in the Southern Ocean.

So that's the dream. Sail that tough boat that John Brandlmayr drew, that my mom and dad built from scratch, around the world the hard way. That's the dream, that's the idea, will I be able to do it, can the boat do it? I'll get the boat ready to go, I'll get the engine done right, new sails, make it offshore ready, make the tough boat completely seaworthy. I can do that, I'm a helicopter mechanic, I specialize in making helicopters airworthy in the Arctic in the winter. Am I tough enough to sail around the world by way of 5 capes?