Once Debbie and I had made our decision to move to BC I began researching options for purchasing a sailboat.  I owned a 27′ Catalina sailboat while I was in BC previously and knew that if I was heading west again a sailboat would be in my future.  First we decided on a list of qualities a sailboat would need to have…

• blue water capable – although we wouldn’t undertake any blue water sailing in the first couple of years we wanted a boat that was capable of this when we were ready,
• over 30 feet – my previous boat, Alleluia, was 27′ and although there was plenty of space for one or two people it quickly got crowded if more than 2 people tried to spend a few days on the boat.  My next boat would need more space as we planned to sail with our children and friends from time to time.
• able to single hand – I am a firm believer that I should not have to rely on anyone else to handle the boat on my own.  I needed a boat that was easy to sail single handed so that I would not be dependent on other people’s schedules,
• sea worthiness – I wanted a boat that was tough, safe and could handle large seas if required,
• good inventory of sails – this was a nice to have and not really a hard requirement,
• price – good strong boats above 30 feet jump in price but I didn’t want to over extend myself into a large monthly payment so I was thinking of somewhere in the $40K to $60K range…

I spent countless hours researching various 2nd hand boat websites and identified several nice boats which fit the above criteria that were located in the Pacific Northwest region.  I emailed and old friend and coworker, John Day, that I worked with at WebTech in Burnaby, BC for his input into a few of my candidates.  John had previously sailed his boat to Hawaii and was knowledgeable about blue water capable boats and we had kept in touch over the years after WebTech.  A few days later I heard back from John and he discussed some of the strengths and weaknesses in each of my selections.  At the end of his email he mentioned that he might know of just the boat for me and forwarded a link.

I opened the link and it was for a 1984 Contessa 34′ sailboat that seemed to match my criteria perfectly…  The listed price was in the range of what I was willing to spend and as I read the website it mentioned to email John at Contessa34@shaw.ca.  I thought “Could this be John’s old boat?  The same one he sailed to Hawaii in 2000?”  then I had a flashback to 2005 when I visited John on his boat near Granville Island in Vancouver and I remembered thinking that I’d love to own a boat like this one day when I grow up…  Was this the same boat that was built in the UK by Jermery Rogers, the famed British boat builder? Was this the same make of boat that were raced in many UK races including the famed ’79 UK Fastnet race?  Turns out that indeed this was Treylya, the same boat and that John was selling it as he is looking to upgrade to a larger one.

What a great turn of events…

John and I talked and negotiated for the next several weeks and when we reached consensus I purchased her.  I’m ecstatic about how this all worked out and I’m looking forward to experiencing many new adventures together with the woman I love, aboard this beautiful sailboat…  Life’s good…