Lasqueti Island: PART 1 - The Spinnaker Run or "halfway between Dogpatch and Shangri-la."

Lasqueti Island: PART 1 - The Spinnaker Run… False Bay on Lasqueti Island lays at 49* 29’ 40.34”...Lasqueti Island: PART 1 - The Spinnaker Run… False Bay on Lasqueti Island lays at 49* 29’ 40.34” N, 124* 21’ 27.99” W, in the upper reaches of the Strait of Georgia, British Columbia, Canada. As Bobby Zimmerman would say, “It was a simple twist of fate” which took me there again. Lasqueti runs Norwest by Soueast about 8 km wide & 20 km long, with a land mass of roughly 73.km (28 sq mi). With approximately 350 permanent residents the island is notable in that it is entirely off the grid of commercial power utilities. There is little industry and a somewhat alternative economy. As the island’s own cookbook puts it, "Lasqueti -- halfway between Dogpatch and Shangri-la." In other words a sailor like me felt right at home. I’d visited the island several times prior to this occasion. The first being in 1973 on the 38’ fishing trawler HOPE. But this time it was a long, downhill, solo, spinnaker run in 2001, which resulted in my current plight and eventually caused me to seek out the help of a local boat builder. My quandary was a broken tiller, happened at the end of a solo, 40+ mile, spinnaker run. Broke in such a manner it was not to be readily repaired. My vessel at that time was a 27 foot, Lyle Hess design Balboa sloop, OSPREY on a buddy boat cruise with Marjean Mathews aboard GRACE a 1965 Islander 32 footer and Larry Silva skippering SPRITE, a 33’ 1963 Pearson Vanguard. Marjean of GRACE was on her first month long cruise as well as her first major single-handing experience. No easy task considering Larry and I were prone to striking courses requiring numerous sail sets throughout the day, often pushing the boats pretty hard. John Burnham, Cruising World’s senior editor, recently spoke of journals as being “the rich, raw material that helps me connect the dots & create the texture of a story.” In agreement I feel the journal is the very key to remembrances of the scent and taste of the experience itself. From OSPREY’S journal: 0745:hours, 09.21.00: Rebecca Spit; I deflated & stowed the dinghy, cleaned up below decks and shortened the anchor rode anticipating the agreed upon 0800 departure. 0800:hours, 09.21.00: departed Rebecca Spit, GPS showed Lasqueti at 49.9 miles south. Wind was filling in from the Norwest, skies were fair and mostly sunny with the transition from a high pressure system developing. 0840:hours, 09.21.00: Settling into the boats, the wind and wavelets – with a slight increase in the northerly to 10 knots we are sailing down wind at 5. A lot of wind is needed if we are to make good our 49 miles before dark. As many readers will know when sailing with buddy boats sometimes you travel beam to and are able to carry on a conversation. Other times the course steered will take the boats several miles apart and if there is to be communication it either needs to be VHF or non-verbal. No we don’t carry a series of semaphore flags (although that might be cool), and it was not appropriate at that time to use emergency signals. Nope, all I had to do from my station a mile or so to the east of the other two boats is hoist OSPREY’S spinnaker and the challenge was communicated. It was quite predictable that SPRITE would soon be following suit, sail suit that is. Indeed I won a bet with myself when the big blue and green puffer opened within 15 minutes of my red, black & yellow headsail. And the race was on. Unfortunately GRACE wasn’t carrying a chute and maybe that worked out for the best. Now a foot note here; and this is where I’ll lose any sail racing fans who held on & read this far – me mates & I are not purists, in fact we might stand to be called down-right lazy sailors at times. When flying the ‘chutes’ solo we don’t bother with setting poles & the like. Simply hoist, steer and make as good as possible running off with the breeze. 1230:hours, 09.21.00: 26 nautical miles to Fagan Rocks, north of Lasqueti maintaining approximately 6 knots of boat speed in 15 knots of breeze. 1430:hours, 09.21.00: Wind up 18 to 20 knots, making 7+ over the ground speed. Running with 6 foot wind waves given the 30 mile fetch. From this last point on there wasn’t much for this single-handed skipper to do but helm the boat. OSPREY was not set-up with self-steering and this much wind in the spinnaker would easily over whelm the tiller-mount, worm-drive autopilot. With over 20 knots of breeze developing in the afternoon we were making great time. But with 6+ straight hours at the helm it was becoming a long day in the cockpit and the afternoon gave no relief. Did I mention Larry and I are something of the lets-push-it-to-the-limit-gonzos when it comes to favorite sport? He was in the same boat (figuratively) as I. No relief, cold beer in the ice-box below decks you can’t reach for fear of broaching and all the while not wanting to stop. Finally around 1700:hours, nine hours on the tiller, and in 20+ knots of wind, I made a mistake. Checking the chart and GSP for a fix on the Sisters Islets when the GPS falls onto the cockpit sole. Reaching for the GPS the tiller follows the lean of my body at the completely wrong angle during a run off a wave accompanied by a puff of wind. All of a sudden OSPREY is in the rush of a broach. I fight it until a near explosion as the wood-laminate tiller bursts into fragments and I end up on my dumb Irish arse in the cockpit as the vessel heels tremendously under the force of coming-to in such conditions. Fortunately the mast and all standing rigging remain intact. “Whew”… That, my friend, is how I came to be part of a three-boat raft in False Bay, on Lasqueti Island with a broken tiller in need of replacement. Watch for: Lasqueti Island: PART 2 - Eyeball Boatworks…