Back Story

The Varde is a 38' cutter rigged ferro-cement sailboat, with the hull built to Tahiti Ketch plans. She was originally built in 1975ish by Dave Dohlert, a scientist and engineer from the East coast. He sailed the Varde across the Atlantic twice, and had many adventures, before giving the Varde to his doctor, Dr Harvey, in old age.

The Varde sat for a long time in Dr Harvey’s yard, with no mast, wasting away. One of Dr Harvey’s friends, George G, took the Varde and undertook a complete refit and renovation. He added electric motors — she had none originally — and fixed up all of the rigging and did a huge amount of other work. The Varde was put back into the water in Sayward, on the North side of Vancouver island, in late 2013.

And there she sat. George’s health worsened, and he was never able to take the Varde for a sail. He gave the boat back to Dr Harvey, who listed it on Craigslist.

I bought it. I spent a couple of weeks going up to Sayward and working on the boat, but to get any critical work done to the propeller gearboxes she would need to be hauled out, and there were no facilities that could handle the haulout in Sayward. We did a test run and a test sail, and she worked well enough, and Dr Harvey agreed to accompany me, so we made plans to bring her South.

There was one major problem: Sayward is just North of the Seymour Narrows, one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the Pacific Northwest.

Day One

We started out from Sayward on Tuesday, planning to “ride with the tide all the way to Brown Bay.” That rhymes, and even has good meter, so it must be a good plan. After a little mucking about with the mainsail — I was afraid to put it all the way up until we got out of the shelter of the harbor and felt the wind — we got under way. We had good wind and we’d timed the tide close to correctly.

It was a beautiful day. The Varde was sailing well. We had motored out of the harbor, and had good control with the electric motors. We even had a visit from some dolphins.

The wind died down some. We were going slower, and we began to worry about making Brown Bay. I had marked a number of harbors on the chart that we might duck into if we didn’t make Brown Bay and the tide started pulling us back. We inspected these as we slipped by.

The wind picked up in the late afternoon to a fresh breeze, like it does so often in this area, and we made good time. We were almost surprised to find ourselves near the start of the Seymour Narrows with good wind, and at close to the perfect time to ride the end of the flood through. This was doubly good because the tide was high, and we’d be much less likely to see wirlpools or rapids at high tide than at low tide. We had a quick chat about it and decided to go for it.

Although we reached ten knots, with the wind and tide working together, the narrows was nice to us. The trip was uneventful except for a bit of interesting current pushing up to the surface close by Race Point which tried to spin the ship around. We were watching, and steered against it and went through without drama.

After Race Point, we were nearly into Campbell River. The ferry went past, and we got waves from some passengers.

We slipped into a marina in Campbell River, and were met by Dr Harvey’s son, Paul. We all went out for dinner and some well-needed celebratory beers. It was glorious.

We discussed plans for the next day. I had not expected to make it through the narrows in one day, and had planned a day of waiting in Brown Bay or the nearby anchorages for good conditions, but now we were through and Dr Harvey was willing to sail a little bit more, and so we made plans to continue on the next day. We would try to reach a big harbor in Hornby Island. And then, I assumed, head on to Nanaimo the next day.

Day Two

We slept on the boat that night and got an early start the next morning. I dug out the genoa and rigged up a preventer for the mainsail boom, since we expected a long run downwind in light, shifting winds. We started off with light but consistent winds, and headed out from Campbell River.

The first day we had been confined in the narrow Johnstone Strait, but on the second day we expected better winds, more room, and easier sailing. We were disappointed.

The wind became very light, and the sails would barely pull. We pointed well at Hornby Island, but it looked like we might not make it, and the sailing was tedious. I had to wrestle the genoa past the staysail stay on every tack or jibe, so Dr Harvey had to work the tiller. Luckily the preventer worked perfectly, so we avoided any danger.

Soon after passing Comox, Dr Harvey brought up plans for the next day. He started talking about getting a ride back to Sayward from Hornby Island, and I knew we had a problem.

I couldn’t leave the boat at Hornby Island. It was a harbor, an anchorage, but not a marina. They wouldn’t have shore power. The boat was leaking through the propeller stuffing boxes, and our 12-volt system, which the bilge pump used, was being used up by the GPS, radio, and other electronics. If I left it in the Hornby Island harbor while I went back to Seattle, it would sink.

We discussed this and decided to try for Deep Bay, on the inshore side of Denman Island. This was annoying, because we had just passed the channel between the islands. We would have to sail upwind to reach the passage between Comox and the northern tip of Denman island. The passage was quite shallow. The Comox bar was in between. We would need to reach a starting buouy and then line up some markers to find the safe passage, and the starting buouy was upwind. We turned for it but couldn’t reach it, it was too close to the wind.

We tacked (actually jibed, with the stay in the way the boat wouldn’t tack with the genoa on) and ran out to get a little upwind. The wind freshened, and the sea got rougher. We got on the proper tack to reach the starting buouy, but close-hauled in this much wind and chop, the going was rough and a gust would really ruin our day. We needed to get the genoa down.

I went forward and wrestled it down, and put up our staysail and yankee combo. That was exciting. Meanwhile Dr Harvey had the helm and held us on a perfect course. We hit the start buouy and made it through the passage, behind Denman Island.

Then the wind died.

At the mercy of the current, we drifted down, unable to do anything. We motored — very slowly, the motors didn’t seem to do much — over to shore and anchored. There were boats moored to both sides of us, so we felt safe enough. The night was very quiet, almost without a breath of wind.

Day Three

We woke up early and floated south toward Deep Bay. There was barely a breath of breeze. As we floated we called the marina trying to get a berth, or information about the entrance. They were supposed to open earlier, but nobody answered the phone until we were just outside the harbor. We hove-to while they told us that they didn’t have room for us. We would have to continue on. We called French Creek and made sure they would have a berth, and since it was only fifteen miles or so and there was good wind predicted, we decided to try for it.

We had a little trouble getting around the shallow area NW of Deep Bay, with a contrary wind, but we made it out around 10AM and got out from behind Denman Island, into open water. Here we had a little trouble, becuase the wind was out of the Southeast, the opposite of what the weather report had predicted. It would be upwind the whole way to French Creek.

We tacked and tacked for hours. The wind kept shifting, or we would lose it, only to see patches of wind-roughened water a little out of reach. We kept trying to get on a tack that would reach French Creek but nothing would work.

Evening found us a few miles North of Qualicum Beach. The normal freshening of the evening breeze had never come, and we were drifting slowly with the current, pushed back to the north, and closer into shore. Rather than let the current choose where we would fetch up, we tried to motor into shore. The electric motors were nearly useless by this point. In our motor test in Sayward a week before, they had pushed the boat at about 2 knots. Now we were barely even steering in the current. We weren’t managing even close to a knot.

Still, we angled toward a part of the shore that looked a bit more welcoming on the GPS. We reached it, found a good spot with about twenty feet under our keel, and expecting a 4-foot tide, we dropped the anchor.

Exhausted and frustrated, we went below to try to sleep.

Then the gale came up. Screaming out of the Northwest, it pushed us hard at an angle toward the shore. This is the old sailor’s nightmare, blown onto a lee shore by a gale.

The wind would blow parallel to shore for long periods, with stronger gusts blowing directly onto shore with increasingly heavy waves. Nothing that a real sailor would mind, but I didn’t think our anchor would hold, and we couldn’t let out more rode — the bottom sloped up to the shore too steeply here to give us any room.

I decided that we should try to pull up the anchor when the wind was blowing parallel to shore, and get off before one of the bigger gusts, combined with the waves, chose the time for us.

I got Dr Harvey up and put him on the tiller and explained the situation, and then went forward to work the windlass. It took some doing, with the staysail up, and the staysail boom slamming into my leg and side and pinching the windlass handle, but the anchor came free. It really came free too easily — I’m not sure it would have held through the gale. Still, we would have had the same result.

Just as the anchor came free a big gust pushed us toward shore. I was disoriented, working the windlass with my headlamp on, and I couldn’t see our surroundings. I secured the anchor and went back to Dr Harvey, who told me we were heading to shore.

We turned the motors on full, they did nothing and then one of them failed completely. We began to hit rocks. I grabbed a pole and fended us off, and if the motors had been working we may have made it off, but instead we were slowly pushed further and further onto the rocks until we became fully trapped.

The waves continued to pound the boat, but she was solidly stuck. The fight was over. The rocking back and forth on the keel, and the hard slams agasint the rocks, just felt like further punishment.

We called the coast guard. I told them that we were not in immediate physical danger.

We made ourselves as comfortable as possible. I passed cushions out to Dr Harvey, and kept us well supplied with water and snacks. I made sure we discussed what we heard from the Coast Guard, so we really understood our situation, and any dangers we might face in the near future.

The boat finally stopped pounding and came to rest on the rocks, tilted in toward shore. We dragged cushions out to the high-side deck and made ourselves comfortable. I had camping gear and a sleeping bag and wool blankets, and I grabbed the sail bags off the deck to use as additional blankets.

I slept a little and woke deep in the night to see a sky unimaginably full of stars above me. The milky way visible in full glory. Dr Harvey woke up too, and we watched stars shooting across the incredible view.

I slept again, and woke up for sunrise.

Day Four

The tide had gone out so it was safe to go ashore. Dr Harvey went onto the beach while I salvaged a bunch of camping supplies from the boat. I didn’t know how long we would be stuck on the beach and once the tide came in it would be dangerous to go back onto the boat, so we needed to get anything useful off immediately.

I asked Dr Harvey why he started a fire. “That’s what shipwrecked sailors do,” he said. Fair enough. I did what I always do when roughing it — make coffee.

The Varde looked achingly beautiful lying among the rocks. With the rudder and windvane missing, her lines showed clear. The sight of her lying there, so beautiful and sad, makes me feel terrible.

We had called a salvage company and they were supposed to come by at 10AM. They never did, and after calling them a little we hiked up the very steep path to a house on the hill behind, where a very nice homeowner gave us a ride in to town, where we washed up in a restaurant above a QFC.

Afterword

I would like to personally apologize to Jamie Dohlert, the rest of the Dohlert family, and the other friends of the Varde. I made a lot of mistakes on this trip, and I was not a good enough sailor to bring the Varde safely down to Seattle.

I would like to thank Dr Harvey for all of his help in sailing the boat, and in staying calm and helping out while we fetched up onto the rocks.

I would also like to apologize to the people whose houses overlook the shore where we crashed for the unwanted intrusion into their lives.

The Varde might not be lost, several people have expressed interest in floating it again, and more power to them. For me, I can’t afford to fix the boat, I can’t even afford to have the salvage company tow it off the rocks. I’m out.

It was a beautiful dream, and I’m sad it’s gone, but I’m happy that I got to hold it for a little while.

Addendum Requested by Sailors: Mistakes Made