SV Kiviuq

A journal of the sailing vessel Kiviuq and her owners Marilou Kosseim and Alan Teale

Vessel Name: Kiviuq
Vessel Make/Model: Van de Stadt Madeira 46
Hailing Port: Inverness
Crew: Marilou Kosseim and Alan Teale
About: Marilou is a Canadian national, retired physician and Consultant Obstetrician/Gynaecologist. Alan is a British national, retired veterinary surgeon and animal molecular geneticist. Both are currently UK-based and members of the Ocean Cruising Club.
Extra:
Kiviuq is a van de Stadt Madeira 46 in alloy, with round bilge and deeper draft options. The 46 is the scoop stern variant of the van de Stadt Madeira 44, the scoop being developed by the builder, Alexander Beisterveld of Beisterveld Jachtbouw in Steenwijk, Netherlands. Kiviuq is rigged as a [...]
13 September 2019 | Shining Waters Marine, Tantallon, Nova Scotia
05 September 2019 | St Margaret's Bay, Nova Scotia
22 August 2019 | Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia
13 August 2019 | LaHave Islands, Nova Scotia
04 August 2019 | Yarmouth, Nova Scotia
28 July 2019 | Head Harbour, Campobello, New Brunswick
11 July 2019 | Belfast, Maine
07 July 2019 | Belfast, Maine
06 July 2019 | Belfast, Maine
13 June 2019 | Belfast, Maine
01 June 2019 | Burnside Lodge
15 September 2018 | Belfast, Maine, Nova Scotia
30 August 2018 | St Peters, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia
18 August 2018 | Bay La Hune, Newfoundland
10 August 2018 | Isle aux Morts, Newfoundland
04 August 2018 | Baddeck, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia
30 July 2018 | St Peters, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia
26 July 2018 | Spanish Ship Bay, Eastern Shore, Nova Scotia
14 July 2018 | Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia
06 July 2018 | Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
Recent Blog Posts
13 September 2019 | Shining Waters Marine, Tantallon, Nova Scotia

Dorian and the aftermath

We rode out Hurricane Dorian at anchor in Schooner Cove together with four other foreign boats that came in for the same purpose. All the boats rode safely to their best bower anchors, I suspect on long chain scopes of 10:1 or more. We certainly did. It seems that the latest consensus among the cruising [...]

05 September 2019 | St Margaret's Bay, Nova Scotia

Waiting for Dorian

It was going to happen sooner or later. A hurricane is heading our way. After devastating the Abacos and Bahamas and brushing Florida, Dorian is now close E of the coast of the Carolinas, and the current forecast is that it will go right over Nova Scotia on Saturday/Sunday moving quickly in a NNE'ly [...]

22 August 2019 | Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia

Downward and upward

I realise there is quite a lot of catching up to do since my last post, which left us in Grand Manan, so apologies if this becomes something of a travelogue.

13 August 2019 | LaHave Islands, Nova Scotia

Boarded!

After St Andrews it was time to begin making our way across the Bay of Fundy towards Nova Scotia. This we decided to do in two stages. The first involved retracing our wake across Passamaquoddy Bay and around the southern end of Deer Island, then up Head Harbour Passage to the northern tip of Campobello [...]

04 August 2019 | Yarmouth, Nova Scotia

Things that go bump in the night.

From Campobello we sailed southabout Deer Island, an area renowned for its cetacean populations (and thus also populated with whale-watching boats), into Passamaquody Bay and up to St Andrews. Here we picked up a mooring just 150m or so off Market Wharf, the large and well-appointed town wharf.

28 July 2019 | Head Harbour, Campobello, New Brunswick

Going Downeast

We left Belfast just over a week ago on Saturday 20th July to sail down Penobscot Bay with the intention of spending a night at anchor in Seal Bay, Vinalhaven. Seal Bay is beautiful, well protected and not that far from the popular yachting centres of Camden and Rockland. Perhaps for this reason it was [...]

Back in Moonbat City

15 September 2018 | Belfast, Maine, Nova Scotia
Alan
We have sailed quite a way since my last post. From St Peters in Cape Breton we did an overnight (31st August/1st September) to Halifax where we spent a few days at anchor opposite the Armdale Yacht Club towards the head of the Northwest Arm. We had a pleasant time there in the company of several other boats that we had met in Newfoundland. It was on leaving Halifax that the little flotilla broke up. We were the second boat to leave with Lunenburg as our next destination.

As we made our way back down the Northwest Arm early on the morning of 5th September we found that our autopilot was malfunctioning. As a result, and because we needed to use the engine due to lack of wind, we hand-steered to Lunenburg.

After some careful passage planning we left Lunenburg on the 8th September knowing that without the autopilot we would need to sail the distance to Belfast; the need to sail dictated by the need to use the windvane steering if we were to avoid steering by hand for a couple of days. Fortunately our planning paid off and the wind stayed in the north to northeast sector for almost the entire passage; the exception being overnight on the second night at sea when we were in any case hove-to so that we would not get involved in the dark with the lobster pots that infest the coast of Maine.

Nonetheless, shortly after getting under way again at dawn on the 10th September Marilou noticed a few metres of polypropylene rope trailing behind us. Some heroic work hanging over the scoop stern on Marilou's part determined that this line was attached to a pot buoy and its pickup buoy companion that were hiding just under the scoop. It also suggested that this very unwelcome hitch-hiker was attached to Kiviuq's rudder, although the steering felt quite normal. As we sailed into Penobscot Bay on up towards Belfast we kept our fingers crossed in the hope that the line(s) was not around the propeller, which of course we would need to manoeuvre in the marina at the Front Street Shipyard. We were quite relieved when we started the engine and put it into gear after stowing the sails in the approaches to Belfast when everything worked normally.

After docking Marilou somehow managed to clear the offending items from under the stern without anyone having to enter the water to do so.

So here we are, back in Belfast, our base for the coming winter. An outline workplan for repairing the autopilot has been made with the technical services manager at the Front Street Shipyard and this afternoon we will remove the inverter which refused to turn on the evening before we left Lunenburg and hasn't functioned since. The inverter provides us with 230V AC power on board which it 'inverts' from the 24V DC battery supply. It isn't a big loss.

The inverter will be packed off on Monday to the nearest Victron repair facility in New Jersey. We will then make a gentle start on pre-winter preparations. Meanwhile we are enjoying being back 'home' in Moonbat City.
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Where is Kiviuq?
Kiviuq's Photos - Main
4 Photos
Created 1 June 2019
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Created 23 August 2016
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Created 23 August 2016
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Created 22 August 2016
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Created 22 April 2016
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Created 22 April 2016
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Created 21 April 2016
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Created 20 April 2016
13 Photos
Created 22 October 2015
13 Photos
Created 21 May 2014

About & Links

IMPORTANT NOTE: In Map &Tracking above you can see where Kiviuq was located when we last reported a position to the blog. But please be aware that position reporting sometimes goes down. This can be due to a technical problem on board, to a problem with the satellite system or to a problem with the blog site. Therefore...... PLEASE NOTE THAT IN THE EVENT THERE IS NO POSITION REPORTING THIS SHOULD NOT ON ITS OWN BE TAKEN AS AN INDICATION THAT KIVIUQ AND/OR HER CREW ARE IN DIFFICULTIES. Technical/electrical problems are by no means rare at sea in relatively small vessels.