The Boat

For those interested in our boat Songline please read on. I'll try not to make this too boring. She is steel, round chine cutter manufactured in Sidney BC by Waterline Yachts. When we bought her she was well rigged and equipped for lond distance cruising. We've had a storm jib made and added a parachute anchor to her inventory. I've changed the charging system around to include a high capacity alternator and automatic charge relays. She has 3-90W solar panels which seem to work quite well keeping the 400A of house batteries charged. I added a SCS-IIusb PACTOR III modem to the iCOM 710 SSB. Unfortunately we had to go to the "dark side" and buy a Windows laptop. We had the radio opened up for HAM frequencies. I really like the way the systems works. Getting weather information, sending and receiving emails and voice communications all seem to work very well. It is however electronics and I know well enough that if it keeps working for even a week or two I'll consider it lucky. We have a Village Marine water maker. Probably one of the best pieces of equipment on the boat is the hard dodger. It extends over the entire length of the cockpit. When we first bought the boat I was considering having it removed. It didn't look very "yachtie". Soon after that while heading up Georgia Strait I noticed the crew on a boat beside us all wearing foul weather gear while I still had my t-shirt on. The notion of removing the dodger quickly waned. We have pressure hot and cold water but no shower. Out on deck for that. I wanted to install a below decks autopilot but didn't have time or money. We do have a Monitor wind vane steering system which should, from everything we hear, become one of our best friends. There's a diesel heater but for the South Pacific I might as well pack the boat with down sleeping bags and parkas. We have all the required safety gizmos like EPIRB, flares, 6 man life raft etc.

Peter