SV Marjorie's Adventures

Vessel Name: Marjorie
Vessel Make/Model: Robert Stephens Ketch, custom 59 fter
Hailing Port: Bristol, R.I.
Crew: This vessel is cold molded, with all bronze hardware, hank on head sails, but with modern convinences! She was built in Maine and cruised the East coast of the USA before we brought her thru the Panama Canal and up to San Fran spring 2011.
About: Captain Colin Brayton grew up in Brooklin, Maine same place this boat was built. Been flopping around the seas for the last 8 years on various types of boats from traditional schooners to a sailing research vessel to sailing and motoring yachts.
Extra: Headed to BC and southeast Alaska for the summer of 2012.
03 December 2012 | Broughton Islands, British Columbia
29 May 2012 | Victoria, BC
13 March 2012 | Berkeley, CA
Recent Blog Posts
03 December 2012 | Broughton Islands, British Columbia

Summer 2012

The summer was spent based out of Port McNeill, near the north end of Vancouver Island. Spent most of our time at Steve Jackman's Marina and fuel dock. Very nice people, great energy, good docks, electricity, water, no bathrooms or showers, but a 5 minute walk to all services including, laundry, stores, cafes, bars, resturants, and shopping. Its a neat little town. During three different trips over the course of the summer, the boat and I with a variety of invited guests cruised and explored the Broughton Islands. Secluded anchorages, tried to catch crabs, but failed, really good at catching sea stars. Caught some prawns, they were mightily tasty. Got in to stand up paddle boarding with and inflatable board, that allowed me to go explore the nooks and crannies of our various anchorages. It was a mellow summer, but a good one. In the end of September, I left there with a buddy and we took the boat down to Nanaimo. No wind except the last day. My friend left and I sailed down through the gulf islands on my own for about 4 days, exploring places to take the boss in the future. Found some neat little holes to tuck into. Got back stateside the second week of October. Got to see some new country this summer, it was a grand time.

18 June 2012

Powell River to Port McNeill

We stopped briefly into West Veiw, just south of Powell River, to pick up food, and a friend of the owners, Kevin. Not much wind up here, usually out of the Northwest, the same general direction we are traveling. Our first stop put us in the Octopus Islands, there are numerous narrows/rapids that need [...]

11 June 2012

Victoria to Powell river

Howdy,

29 May 2012 | Victoria, BC

Swiftsure Race

Well, we attempted the Swiftsure Light Classic race, it was more of a "Driftsure"! The start was less then 5 knots. It took about 3 hours to go 8 miles, then the wind picked up and we went from full sail with the 150% genoa up to the 100% jib to a reefed main sail. The wind got up to 25 to 30 knots for [...]

18 May 2012

SF to Port Angeles, WA

Finally, the summer traveling season has begun. I left Berkeley Marina with 3 friends early on a Sunday morning enroute to Humboldt Bay. It took 60 hours, 230 miles, and it was rough. It was calm leaving the SF Bay and we motored out with just the Main sail up all the way out until past Bonita light. [...]

13 March 2012 | Berkeley, CA

Sitting at the Dock

We have been sitting in Berkeley since last June, doing a lot of day sails in the bay or most recently out to the Farallon Islands. We have done a lot of work to the boat in the last 6 months, nothing super major but its been steady as it always is when trying to keep a boat up to show room quality all [...]

SF to Port Angeles, WA

18 May 2012
Finally, the summer traveling season has begun. I left Berkeley Marina with 3 friends early on a Sunday morning enroute to Humboldt Bay. It took 60 hours, 230 miles, and it was rough. It was calm leaving the SF Bay and we motored out with just the Main sail up all the way out until past Bonita light. Then we raised our Yankee sail, a high cut jib, and proceeded to motor sail for the majority of the rest of the trip. We stayed right along the coast, wind right out of the north blowing 15 to 20. The closer we stayed to show the calmer the winds and the mellower the seas. We got up to just off Shelter Cove, south side of Cape Mendocino and the weather got kind of knarly. We battled a 2 knot current the entire trip but as we headed out west to get around the Cape we were down to a double reefed main and the engine with 36 to 42 knots of breeze coming across the decks for about 8-10 hours. To say the least it was rather uncomfortable. Finally, we got off the tip of the Cape Tuesday morning, was able to set the staysail and gain of much need extra couple of knots. We ended up pulling into Eureka, CA about 1830 Tuesday. The crew were pretty under the weather the entire trip, cold, and even one guys missed a hand hold a broke his nose with about 12 hours to go but they still all said they enjoyed the trip by the end of it. It was super fun to enter Humboldt Bay, we managed to come across the bar nice and safe. Good to see old college friends, get a breather from the high winds that raged throughout the area the following days.

On Saturday, three more friends showed up, and we set sail mid morning on Sunday to go to Port Angeles, WA. We couldn't have had a more opposite and better sail then the previous leg. The first 2 days out we had southerly winds and swells, we were making 6.5 to 7 knots over the ground. By Tuesday, we were 60 miles off shore, the wind swung around to the North, we tacked back towards shore and set our sails on a port tack headed North-east. We never tacked the boat again until we round Cape Flattery some 230+ miles later. We sailed most of that in 15 to 20 knots of breeze, we had one night we reduced sail to just the yankee and a double reefed main but we were still doing 6 knots over the ground and comfortable. Most of the time we were sailing with a double head rig and the main. The trip down the Juan de Fuca straights was a long lazy rolling swell and glassy calm waters, snow on the peaks of the mountains on the Olympic Peninsula, just beautiful. We got into Port Angeles mid afternoon. All the crew fully rested and feeling good.

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