Back in the day – Illusion being built

** We’ve been sorting through a big box of photos which had been stored under the bed in Illusion for quite a few years. It’s been quite a surprise to find out which photos survived and which were damp and stuck together – we haven’t got through them all yet, but so far there are some great ones from various adventures, including travels in Mexico, South Pacific tropics, and New Zealand. Over the next few weeks we’ll scan some and post them here on the blog to give a bit of Illusion‘s back story. **

I was living in an apartment in Tiburon (near San Francisco), California, failing to find a used boat to buy. I almost gave up after a boat deal in Germany fell through. Then the MacGregor video of their 65 foot sailboat at a local boat show sparked my interest in taking a closer look; a factory visit to meet Roger MacGregor; and a downpayment to get on the waiting list. A year and a half later, in late 1994, I went back to the factory in Costa Mesa, California to see her being built. Surprisingly, the photos of her in pieces, with the hull partly assembled, survived in good shape!

Continue reading “Back in the day – Illusion being built”

Recent trip to Hawaii

20160406_064403.jpgI’m back from about a week in Hawaii working on boat projects to prepare Illusion for her journey to Vancouver, Canada this summer. These were all projects we’d hoped to do once the boat was in Vancouver, but since this trip has been so long delayed, I decided to work on them now. And they’ll be useful for this coming passage, too, of course. I went alone this time (sorry, no cute photos of Toby on the boat – though, cute story, apparently he spent the whole time I was away saying ‘Dada, boat!’) and apart from the odd run along the beach or walk through the park, it was pretty much work, work, work. It was great to see the Full Monty crew and Johnson who runs the Sumo Ramen and Curry place across the road – always good to see his friendly face and catch up. Here’s a brief list of what I got done: Continue reading “Recent trip to Hawaii”

Crunch Time – post by Janice

She's sailed before, she'll sail again!
She’s sailed before, she’ll sail again!

It’s here at last: our last day on land! Illusion has been “on the hard” for over a month now, and she’ll be going back in the water first thing Monday morning. Eeeep! An incident in which the boat was going to be moved yesterday, and then wasn’t, led to it being lifted and then dropped back down onto stands that were no longer aligned – damaging our beautifully painted hull in several places. We’ve repaired the dings and repainted, and Doug took it all in stride, but there’s no doubt that that gave him more than a few gray hairs. A couple more touch-ups though and the hull should be fine. But the problems aren’t over yet, so today’s the day when the biggest problems need to get solved….

The story so far – post by Deb

It’s been an exciting and hectic six weeks in New Zealand.  Getting Illusion ready for the journey has been a journey in itself. We’ve come a long way, with many milestones to show for it: Continue reading “The story so far – post by Deb”

“That’s a big boat.” – post by Janice

The folks at the boatyard really like to remind us of this fact. Yup. We know. It’s a big boat. We know it intimately, now that we have sanded its 65-foot hull repeatedly for nearly a week. Those of us with back problems really felt it. Those of us without back problems no longer exist. But even the pain and tedium of sanding came to an end at some point, and that point was when Doug said “Okay, that’s enough sanding.” If our arms were not already frozen in overhead positions, we would have thrown them up in jubilation. Denied our gesticular glee, we celebrated instead with a bit of bubbly later that evening. Continue reading ““That’s a big boat.” – post by Janice”

Seeing red: what to do with a store credit?!

Auckland Harbour Bridge
Auckland Harbour Bridge

Shopping is not my favourite hobby and yet it seems to be taking up a lot of our time at the moment. We’ve started ‘provisioning’ (stocking up on food for the voyage, more on that soon), and we’ve also become regulars in the marine chandleries in the Auckland area. They’re mostly located within a 10 minute walk of Westhaven and Beaumont and the popular ones are as close to that corner as possible. A yacht refitter quickly realizes that a purchased item will not necessarily end its life on the yacht – and if lucky can recycle an unwanted item back to the shop, not into the yacht’s spares locker.  During Illusion‘s refit, various items purchased with good intentions have turned out to not quite fit the need when compared more closely with the matching parts already on board. A couple of examples below illustrate this while giving a little insight into the exciting (?!) challenges of refitting: Continue reading “Seeing red: what to do with a store credit?!”

Sea changes: the first month!

I need a haircut!
I need a haircut!

Wow! It’s a month today since I arrived in New Zealand. The cunning plan to document the process of getting Illusion ready to sail again has been somewhat foiled by the fact that by the time we finish work each day I’m ready to sleep. That combined with our internet connections being fairly unreliable has made contact a little irregular. And did I mention that our days consist of basically working for hours, eating, sleeping, then starting all over again? It’s been busy! I’ve managed the odd Facebook and Twitter update, but nothing on here. However, as our plan in having a website was not only to share with friends and family what’s going on, but also to document the experience for ourselves and to keep some kind of journal of the expedition, I’m going to do a catch up post here. Maybe when (if?) things calm down a bit, I’ll be able to go into some more details, but for now here’s a bit of a summary of the past month….. Continue reading “Sea changes: the first month!”

The Peruvian Guano Case – post by John

In the commonwealth countries around the world, the case most often quoted to determine relevance of documents is Compagnie Financier v. Peruvian Guano, known simply as the Peruvian Guano case. This was a dispute between companies over the mining of large reserves of bird guano fertilizer. In this case the court also set out the legal tests to determine when documents are relevant, and therefore must be produced, as opposed to when they are not relevant and need not be produced. The fact that the legal test to determine whether documents are crap or not, happens to come from a case with such a name, has always made lawyers and judges smile.

I had been traveling through the north and south island of New Zealand for three weeks, when my sailing friends arrived. Doug Hawkins, Deb Jandrlich and Mike Sullivan. Janice Lo would join us later. Mike, Deb’s partner, was here to visit nz with us, offer his skills for boat maintenance, then fly back to Vancouver. Myself, Doug, Deb and Janice were to sail Illusion back to Vancouver, taking four months to do this. And the boat should have been in good shape for us. Continue reading “The Peruvian Guano Case – post by John”

At the Vancouver Boat Show

Sail boats at the Stadium
Sail boats at the Stadium

We had a great time at the Vancouver Boat Show over the Family Day weekend. We wandered round talking to various people about insurance, local marinas (for when Doug and Illusion return to Vancouver) and options for heating and lighting on the boat. I was excited to meet the lovely people staffing the Bluewater Cruising Association stand – they were very reassuring about the fact I don’t have a clue about sailing and I look forward to heading to some of their events while Doug is away. Continue reading “At the Vancouver Boat Show”

Introducing John – man of few words. Or is he just in a rush?!

Various members of the crew will be updating the blog with their experiences along the way! If it’s not obvious, you can tell who wrote the post from the information at the bottom of each entry, where it states the author. In the right column of each page you’ll find the ‘Categories’ section where posts are divided by author, so you can easily choose to just read the entries posted by one particular person. This one, for example, will show up in the category ‘John’s posts’ and also says underneath that the author is John Noble. EDIT AUGUST 2015: We’ve now changed this to a general ‘Guest Crew post Category’ and have added the name of the post writer to the posts’ titles

Janice is already on her journey, currently somewhere in Indonesia; Deb is working away to finish her contract so she can be ready to leave soon; Doug has bought his one-way ticket to New Zealand and has a few weeks left in Vancouver; and John’s departure date is imminent. He has this eloquent first blog post for you today:
Continue reading “Introducing John – man of few words. Or is he just in a rush?!”