crealock 37

Christy and I hopped on the motorcycle - after a long morning of trying to get the batteries charged - and ran up to Bellingham to take a look at two boats. The latter, a Pearson 424 was too big and too Partridge Family for us. It was a 1979 boat replete with naugahide (won't somebody think of the naugas?!) and a rough interior. Although it had a shiny stainless steel caprail all around the boat.

The first boat we saw, however, was a really interesting boat and is currently sitting neck and neck with the Huntingford boat as our most likely hole to dump buckets of money into. It was a 1990 Pacific Seacraft 37', or as they are often referred to: a Crealock 37 after their designer, Bill Crealock.

She was a beautiful boat, extremely well taken care of. But what caught my eye was the hardware. She absolutely bristles with burly bronze deck hardware everywhere you look. Winches, cleats, hawseholes, portlights. Bronze, bronze, bronze. It made for a very classic and rugged look.

She was a convertible cutter rig with a removable solent stay, giving lots of sail plan options at your disposal. The mast was not terribly tall, and perhaps why they have a reputation for being slow sailing boats.

The interior of the boat was compact but not nearly as cramped as folks would have you believe. She seemed plenty comfortable for the likes of us.


A well designed canoe stern. Too many canoe sterns flare out into this big butt that looks like the after effect of too many Big Macs. Crealock figured out the aesthetics of the canoe stern.






Cool stern anchor setup from the factory.






Four (count 'em!) big bronze cleats at the bow.


Chainplate for the removable staysail stay.


Weathered bronze portlights. Me likey.

All the pics posted here on our smugmug account.

bareboatin'

We did our bareboat charter class this weekend. Wicked fun. We provisioned the boat Friday morning and practiced some docking-without-crashing maneuvers. Of the two types of docking, apparently this is the preferred method.

We then pointed our J35C out into the Sound and beat into a south wind all the way to Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island where docked at the marina and holed up for the night.

The next morning, we motored south through Rich Passage and on into Port Orchard. We hoisted sails here for a nice broad reach to the north until we landed in Liberty Bay. We anchored outside of Poulsbo and rowed our hapless little dinghy ashore for some good Scandenavian fun in downtown swinging Poulsbo. Afterwards, we motored south about a mile and anchored up again for a good nights sleep.

The next day we came back through Agate Passage, Port Madison and back into Puget Sound. We beat down the west side, crossed the shipping channel without getting run over, waved at the seal lions hanging out on the mid-channel bouy, and ran back up the east side to Shilshole.

Great fun but also a huge confidence boost for me. I would wake up at 3AM stressed out about the notion of docking a 40' boat. Once we hoik up money for a boat, I'll probably still stress about it but I just feel so much better about it after this experience. We had a great instructor and fun people to sail with.

I wanna go back.


Skirting south of the Bainbridge ferry.


Our instructor, Pierre, and Christy checking out wind direction.


s/v Astraea nestled onto an end tie in Eagle Harbor.


Cute.


Pierre and Shawn (at the helm) spot a mooring bouy in Rich Passage.


Christy driving.




Astraea anchored up outside of Poulsbo.


"To Poulsbo, Jeeves!"




Steve was so gracious as to row our lazy asses into Poulsbo.




Where in the hell is that dinghy dock??


Poulsbo Marina.


The brain trust calculating our next morning's passage. From left to right: Pierre, Steve, Shawn.


If I knew math was involved, I might have thought twice about taking up sailing.


Fun!


Shawn has been fishing in Alaska for the last 12 years so he knows a thing or two about boats. Here, he's showing Pierre how to do a back splice.


They expressed their displeasure in when we interrupted their nap.


Hanging out Ray's afterwards for some cold beer.

huntingford custom pilothouse

On our way down to Portland to hang with Christy's aunt and uncle, we veered off the route just a skosh to head over to Sequim and check out the Stan Huntingford-designed custom pilothouse.

Lots of questions came about the boat and we need some answers before we can decide anything. And we need to look at lots more boats before we can decide how this one compares.


I'm hesitant to call it a pilothouse. It doesn't have that trawler-with-a-stick aesthetics that pilothouse implies. It's more of a raised salon with an interior helm.


Comfy cockpit.


Nice sunny salon.


Rigorously tested stanchions.


What do we find in the winch handle pocket? A spatula. Of course.


It has a smaller skeg protecting the prop shaft and propellor. But mostly, I'm just showing off my wicked cool waterproof camera.


R _ D _ R. Vanna, I'd like to buy a vowel, please.


Burly deck to hull joint with reinforcing struts.


This is a hull core sample compared with a hull core sample of a Catalina 36.

Hmm.

More (way more) pictures in the smugmug gallery.

hehehe

Because I'm emotionally 13 years old.

That's why.

friggin' sweet

The Stan Huntingford designed custom pilothouse I referenced in this post here has been sold so we never went to go look at it last weekend.

Except for not.

Whatever deal there was seemed to have fallen through. Not sure why but we'll be sure to ask. Because we're going to see it on Saturday.

offshore cruising seminar

We attended the Offshore Cruising Seminar from John and Amanda Neal this weekend. Learned alot and threw buckets of gas on the fire. Like we needed any more motivation. Just a few snippets of what we learned:

• Emergen-C packets work for seasickness


• Pelican cases make great ditch bags


• write up a sail reduction plan, at what windspeed do reefs get put in and working sails swapped out for storm sails, etc


• charts, be they electronic or paper, are consistently inaccurate! navigate with your eyes

We also ponied up $350 as a consultation fee for them to help with our boat selection. He's already got us looking at a few boats which we hadn't considered including:

• Waquiez Pretorian - not sure how offshore capable they are


• Pearson 424 - 42 feet is ha-yuge!


• Pacific Seacraft 37 - he said these are slow boats though


• Espirit 37 - by Bob Perry, supposedly a fast boat

Best moment of the whole seminar. John asks everyone who's leaving within a year to stand up. We do. In turn he asks everyone who stands up where they are going and what kind of boat they have.

me: "We're going to Mexico for starters and then we'll decide if we turn right or left."

John: "What kind of boat do you have?"

me: "We don't have a boat."

everyone in the room: [gales of laughter]

John: "Wow. You guys deserve a hat."

So we are now the proud owners of a 48 Degrees North hat courtesy of John and Amanda Swan in honor of having The Most Ridiculous Plan In The Room.