Starting from the Beginning... The first ocean crossing of the world’s largest sailing catamaran By Captain Jamie Spence It took four and a half years to construct the 71-foot long, 69-ton aluminum catamaran. We outfitted her with 10 watertight compartments, twin 150 Isuzu diesels, a rugged two mast ketch rig designed by a space engineering company, and sails built in the finest loft in San Francisco. In September 1987, confident we could get her across the 5000 nautical Pacific miles to the Marshall Islands, the Canvasback slipped through the Golden Gate. Behind, friends and family stood waving. Ahead, the blue Pacific lay bright and beckoning. The trip to Micronesia would take a month. The first stage of the journey would take us on a southerly course with California’s coastal monsoon. The second stage would turn us west at the Tropic of Cancer where the reliable North Pacific trade winds would take us to Hawaii. The 1 | Fall 2016 third stage would bring us south into the Marshalls. The early days along the coast were peaceful ones and melded ship and crew into a well-oiled machine. We fell into a routine of four hours off and four hours on watch. Those on navigated, trimmed sail, logged, fought the chafe in the rigging, and served as the vessel’s eyes. Those off were rocked to sleep by a quartering sea. And so the days passed, in close quarters, on open ocean. Gone were the industrial smells of California and gone with them the stresses of city life. Fresh ocean air filled our lungs with vigor. Schools of flying fish flocked like moths to the ship’s navigation lights. The trailing hand lines occasionally brought a dinner of dorado or tuna. Curious dolphins inspected the twin canoes and, as if expressing their approval, Canvasback Missions
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