Dear Mayor Rob Ford,

My congratulations to you on being appointed chairman of the Canadian Maritime Training and Seamanship Board. Your experience and aptitude as Toronto Mayor has clearly been a guiding factor in your appointment by the Prime Minister, especially when dealing with the public and the press. I realize you've only been on the job for a few short months, but I wanted offer my advise as it seems some of the changes you've made to the training and guidance provided to Canadian mariners have made some lacking in quality seamanship. Certainly this has nothing to do with your management techniques, your brilliantly produced video rants, or your raging drug or alcohol addictions. After all, you are a beacon of the highest Canadian standards, shining brightly for all the world to see.

For instance, while arriving in Prince Rupert, BC I put into the fine yacht club there to clear customs and wait out a gale, forecast to move through the area. The lovely dockmaster gal guided my 15 meter vessel into one of their best 13 meter slips. The two meter overhang of my yacht's stern clearly made no issue of the room available to maneuver in the marina. And the bow pulpit banging on the electrical box throughout the storm was clearly an oversight on my yacht's designer, Mr. Bob Perry. He has no business designing yachts to Canadian standards, and I will write to him in a separate letter, accordingly.

The big metal yacht, Blue Bill, guided by a professional, licensed Canadian seaman has certainly been held to the highest standards prior to slamming into my stern and making a 20 cm gouge in my sugar scoop fiberglass. I have no doubt that the number of other vessels the operator has run into is in full accordance with the guidance you've provided to the Board, and all the mariner's under it's control. However, in America and some few other parts of the world, it's in everyone's best interest to avoid slamming into other yachts at the dock. I realize this may affect the pricing strategies you've implemented in your fiberglass & paint manufacturers and retailers, and the extra 'training classes' -- aka. drug fueled ragers -- you make voluntary for those that are responsible for collisions. However, it is a tried and true yachting custom and tradition to NOT hit the other boats in the marina, regardless of your intoxication level, how many fish you offer to the injured, or how much cash you have in your pocket. This was true in Canada prior to your appointment to the Board, as you may recall. (Or you may need some help in recalling after your latest 'training class' you attended.)

Shortly thereafter, I met one of your fellow Boardmember's at the Prince Rupert fuel dock, I believe. He mentioned you and he were in business to start the Rob Ford School of Maritime Excellence, and that his name was Mr. Dipshitz. As I recall, after waiting patiently 40 minutes for a spot to open at the fuel dock, I evaluated the farthest spot recently vacated and decided that I could fit and made my approach. As I was just about to reach the dock, passing Mr. Dipshitz own boat, he cast off his lines and pushed his boat into the spot I was only a few meters from landing on, stating he now wanted to change his oil. His wife seemed a bit perplexed, and the terrified look of the other boaters getting fuel told me that Mr. Dipshitz's French accent and excellent maritime behavior indicated his Headmastership of your school. I spoke my best French at him to no avail, and ran hard in reverse to avoid yet another collision.

Additionally, while motoring down your beautiful manicured channels after leaving Prince Rupert, enroute to Vancouver, I found some issues with restricted visibility sound signaling. Typically, when in fog which restricts visibility to less than a mile, a sound signal called a fog horn is employed to alert other mariners of the location of one's vessel. This is part of the United Nations Convention of Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS) of which Canada was a signatory member prior to your appointment. I realize that Canada no longer follows these "Rules of the Road" since your verbal disassociation with the body during your last visit to the UN General Assembly. I believe the You-Tube video is particularly clear on your opinion of the Assembly, the "Rules", and the particular Ambassador from Colombia, who apparently cut you off from one of your suppliers.

Nevertheless, I find that making a sound signal in 50 meters of fog is a wise idea and a common courtesy in most other parts of the yachting world. The two Canadian flagged vessels who nearly ran me down in the fog, chose to follow your advise and make, "No F*(% ing sound whatsoever" as you so eloquently put it in your video "Guidance to Canucks While Floating on Whatever Gets You High, Bitch."

The first vessel, a commercial fishing vessel, was kind enough to put on his lights while stealthily approaching my vessel in the fog at 4 knots. We exchanged French sign language at about 35 meters (2 ½ boat lengths), while I blew my F*(%ing fog horn in response to another vessel. The other vessel was kind enough to make a random signal from every 2 minutes (which is the rule) to every 10 minutes, as he was apparently not following your guidance, but making it up as he went along. As I never saw the vessel making the sound signal, it is possible it was a foreign vessel and not aware of your new guidance.

The second boat, a motor yacht which came across my bow at 100 meters an hour or so later, just as we were exiting the fog before going back into it, was also following your guidance. As he felt the stealth approach to make "No F*(%ing sound whatsoever" has really caught on among Canadian flagged vessels and is proving to be a sound strategy for boosting your local economy of fiberglass repair work, as well as keeping your Coast Guard busy calling for vessels in distress, thereby allowing your 'imports' from South America to come into the country unsupervised.

I also believe your choice to randomly place numbers on the existing Hydrographic Survey Office nautical charts is a sound strategy. For instance, the designated anchorage I dropped my hook in last night was not 37 feet deep (at Mean Lower Low Water), as shown on my chart in feet, but rather 87 feet deep at mid-tide. I have to hand it to you, it must be keeping you and your staff laughing your asses off to have us poor Americans wondering what kind of practical joke will be coming our way next. I dropped all of my chain, and lived with the short scope all the while thinking how you guys have 'got me good'.

Assuming I ever make it out of your country in one piece, I would hope that you would kindly return the high standards and quality training previously provided by the Board to your country's mariners. I realize this may affect some of your newer economic and recreational drug- use strategies. However, I think you may find that the long-term effects of well trained, disciplined, and professional mariners will help sustain your political power base and career goals both in the short-term and long-term. But who am I kidding -- you'll be dead from an overdose soon enough, so who really needs a long-term political goal? Nevertheless, if you could kindly advise your mariners to stop running into, or trying to run into, my finely fitted luxury sailing yacht -- as it's starting to look like a Canadian boat with all the damaged fiberglass and paint, and pissed-off French speaking and sign-language flashing skipper.

Your scratching post,

Captain Jake Legvold S/V In Your Dreams, Bitch