Sea Foam Travel Log
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Our Boats
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Catch-Up (Our Tender) |
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MV Sea Foam
General Description
Seafoam is
a TransPac Eagle - 40 ft long
and 14 ˝ feet wide. It has only one
motor and propeller but it does have a bow thruster to help us maneuver in
Marinas.
The Sea
Foam is Hull No. 4, built in Taipei, Taiwan.
She was launched December 2, 1994 and arrived in Canada May 1995. She has all fiberglass decks with the
exception of the stern deck which is teak.
It has aluminum framed windows and wooden caps all around. That means less maintenance every year at
varnishing time!
There is no
helm station on the bridge but the auto pilot feature allows us to drive the
boat from anywhere on board. If we feel
like driving outside we set up the remote and sit out on the bow. The upper bridge has a large area for sitting
out on while at anchor as well as a large area for stowage.
Inside the Sea Foam
The Sea
Foam has one stateroom in the bow with the head on the starboard side and a
separate shower to port. Three large
hatches light up the room. There’s
plenty of storage under the queen island bed as well as one hanging closet, a
chest of six drawers and a small cushioned seat with storage under. Two steps
up takes you into the pilot house. The
door to the stateroom can be closed and a sliding “lid” completely encloses the
room if you need to go to sleep before the rest of the passengers on the boat
might be ready to.
The head has an electric toilet, ample counter
space and stainless sink as well as two large mirrored cabinet doors.
The pilot
house is the Captain’s favorite room.
There are windows all around for great visibility and a comfy bench seat/watch-bed
and table top for sitting high while cruising on auto pilot. When we’re underway I have our lap top on the
table and can either write or navigate with Nobeltec from this bench seat. In the evening, while at anchor, it’s nice to
sit up high and enter into the log all the day’s events.
There are
doors on each side of the pilot house and you can step off easily to dock from
gates located directly across from the doors.
When we’re at anchor we have our tender, Catch-Up, tied at either location
and can easily climb in and out of the boats from these gates.
The saloon
and galley are down two steps from the pilot house. On the starboard side we have a built in
fridge with a remote compressor. The
door has a heavy latch and inside there is tons of room. The counter top above houses our flat screen
t.v. and surround sound equipment.
Across on the port side is the U-shaped galley with hanging cabinets
separating it from the saloon eating area.
The three burner propane stove and microwave have served well to prepare
delicious meals using many tasty treats from the sea. Oysters are my favorite with prawns running a
close second.
In the
saloon there is a bench seat along the starboard side and the nook and table
are opposite. A leaf folds up and we
have shared dinner with seven people sitting comfortably around our table. This same table can drop down and sleep two
overnight on a double sized bed.
Up two
steps and you’re on our stern deck. The
boat sits low in the water because of this and that to us is what makes it so
steady in the water. This low centre of
gravity coupled with the wide beam makes for a very seaworthy vessel. This is the only deck that is teak. That suits us just fine. If ever it decides to leak it will only drop
water down into the lazarette area. No
damage there. Our small Danby freezer
sits on this deck and there is still ample room for two deck chairs and a small
table. At the time of this writing we
are making plans for an aluminum structure to cover this deck. We want the extra outdoor storage as well as
a covered area to dress and suit up for scuba diving.
From the
stern deck you can go up one step on either side of the boat and walk
completely around either side to the bow or off load from two gates that are
just off the pilot house doors.
We love the
boat’s low profile in the water, the “fat girl” beam and the efficient use of
space inside. We didn’t want anything
bigger so we can continue to enjoy cozy little anchorages that a bigger vessel
couldn’t get into. There’s lots of room
for two and a hundred and twenty-five pound dog too!
The Sea Foam Story
After looking at many different types of pilot
house trawlers we hard targeted a Trans Pacific Eagle 40. We looked at several on the internet and even
considered having one shipped here from Florida where most of them seem to be
located. But instead, we traveled to
Friday Harbour and looked at a 2000 model there with Captain Dan Fogle, a yacht
broker at Friday
Harbor Yachts. He took us out for a
quick ride which further confirmed what we had hoped for.
The next
obstacle for us was money. We knew the
later models were outside our budget and we had to resign ourselves to the fact
that we would probably have to wait two years to save up more loot. Captain Dan told us there was possibly a 1995
boat coming up for sale from Portland, Oregon.
The only difference between the later model and the newer is the price –
a one hundred thousand dollar difference!
We also had a search alert on Yacht World. All we had to do now was wait. I don’t wait well so I decided to be
pro-active and be at the ready to make a quick deal just in case an older boat
became available.
I visited
our bank and asked to be pre-approved for a loan should we get the chance to
buy. That in itself is another
story. Most banks aren’t comfortable
putting a mortgage on a property that moves!
The bank worked hard on our behalf and everything was ready if a boat
became available. Now, with fingers
drumming on the table we waited for an Eagle to pass under our nose. One of our good friends, Mark, who was also
in the market for a pilot house, spotted an Eagle for sale from Portland while
looking on Yacht World. It didn’t come
through our search filter because we had the search under “Eagle” and it was
listed as “Transpac” Eagle. If it hadn’t
been for Mark stumbling upon it we probably would have missed it altogether.
I was on
the phone immediately to the broker, “Sam”, wanting more information about the
boat. The pictures on Yacht World were a
good indication - six hundred hours on a 220 Cummins and in great shape.
Rick and I
discussed it that night. I asked him if
I could make an offer and he said, “Go for it!”
I think the only reason he agreed was because he didn’t think the offer
would be accepted. I wanted to offer
thirty thousand dollars less than the asking price because that was what our
budget would allow. Rick and Mark thought I would be turned down flat. I made the offer subject to financing, a
physical inspection and an out of water survey. We faxed the offer to Sam in
Portland and it was accepted. The Sea Foam
had been on the market for all of three days.
Now the fun started!
It was
early June when the offer was accepted and I told Sam I needed the boat ready
to go and on site Vancouver by June 30th – as soon as summer
holidays started. He laughed and said
together we would make it so. Rick
hopped in the car and headed for Portland to inspect the boat and sign the
papers. With Sam’s help we made
arrangements for a pilot, Dave Thompson, to bring the Sea Foam up the coast
from Portland and safely into our hands.
We contemplated bringing it up ourselves and decided that an unfamiliar
boat in unfamiliar waters was not a good combination. Let the experts handle it! Our Mexico-cruising sailboat friends, Andrew
and Janet from the Maitala, thought we were wimps but we didn’t care. We later found out that we would not have
been able to bring the boat up even if we wanted to. You have to have certain qualifications to
show to the insurance company before they will cover you. Dave Thompson presented his credentials and
resume for our insurance and the Sea Foam was covered and good to go!
We needed
to register the boat so the bank could secure their interest in it. We went to our lawyer and asked him if he
could handle the paper work. We were
told by the Portland owner that the Sea Foam was originally imported from
Taiwan by a Canadian who lived in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. We were successful in later locating and
speaking to this owner. He and his wife
provided us with documents that exempted us from paying duty once again on a
boat that had already been imported into the country from Taiwan six years
prior. That equated to an approximate
saving of twenty four thousand dollars!
No small potatoes when you’re already paying forty thousand dollars plus
when exchanging Canadian dollars for American.
As any Canadian boat owner knows, when buying a boat from the States you
have to tack on an additional fifty percent just to cover the exchange, duty
and taxes.
The Sea
Foam left Portland July 1st.
Two hours off the dock Dave Thompson noticed a leaking gear box and limped
back to the dock. He lassoed a cleat as
he docked as he was unable to take the boat out of gear without shutting off
the engine. Transmission problems and a
part coming from Italy stalled the delivery substantially!
While we
waited for the Sea Foam to arrive we cruised around the Gulf Islands in the
Fish-n-Chips. We had arranged with a
broker in Richmond to sell the boat for us as soon as the Sea Foam
arrived. We knew that as long as we
were on it the likelihood of selling it was small but we didn’t want to wait on
the curb for the Sea Foam to arrive so we waited close by for the delivery date
to arrive. Once we got the word that the
Sea Foam was in Canadian waters we would head back across the Strait of Georgia
and meet her in the Fraser River at Steveston.
Friends of ours, Mark and April Weir
(MV “XXIV VII”) were moored in Sydney, Vancouver Island when the Sea Foam
arrived there to check into Canadian Customs.
What a coincidence! Mark called
us on his cell phone and said, “You’ll never guess what I’m standing next
to!” He took several pictures of the
boat with him standing beside it and told us he liked the look of her.
It wasn’t
until August 8th and seven thousand dollars later that the Sea Foam
nosed into the Fraser River at Sand Heads.
After two days we had the Fish-n-Chips off-loaded and ready for drop off
at a broker in Richmond. He was glad to
finally have the boat in his hands. The
Fish-n-Chips and the Sea Foam were rafted together and the change over in homes
began.
We putted
up the river to Captain’s Cove in Ladner, met several friends there that wanted
to see the new boat. We talked it over
and decided we would just lick our wounds and head on home back up the river to
Mission. I was very disappointed that we
weren’t going back out to sea again. We
had three more weeks of holiday, but the Captain wanted to get comfortable with
the boat and all its intricacies first and that was that. I didn’t want to push
him past his comfort zone and the whole ordeal from start to finish had been
stressful enough. We spent a couple of
days anchored in Captain’s Cove and took friends for little scoots up and
around in the river.
After a week of putting around in the river and
getting familiar with the boat we were very happy with it. The Captain changed his mind and we headed
back out to sea – destination - Desolation Sound.
We had one
stop to make before we headed north – Nanaimo.
We wanted to meet with the original owner of the Sea Foam and give him a
chance to see his boat one more time. We
also thought it would be a great opportunity to find out as much as we could
from him about the boat and its workings.
We met with him one sunny morning and he was
very please to see the boat again. He
had a stroke several years prior and his memory was impaired – including all
his boating knowledge. He was unable to
remember some of the answers to our questions but when we showed him his
original log that was still on the boat, memories of great times with friends
and family happily came back to him. He
told us about his career history as a tug boat captain. When I asked him why he chose the Eagle as
his boat of choice he said because it reminded him of the tug he captained in
the 1950’s – the Sea Foam!
We later had another friend of ours recognize
the name of our boat as a tug from way back and he provided us with a picture
from a book he had on the history of Tug Boating in British Columbia. We scanned the picture and sent one to the
original owner and one hangs proudly in our pilot house.
When I
first found out that our boat was named the Sea Foam I thought – YUCK! It sounds like the sludge you see at tide
lines. After meeting the original owner
and hearing all about the history behind the name we decided there was no way
we were going to change the name.
We brought our new girl to home port, Fraser
River, Mission, B.C. on September 4, 2005.
We had a welcome home party and celebrated with many friends and a seafood
feast for all! Our neighbor and friend
Alec, from the Black Swan, toasted our new boat with a fine bottle of single
malt scotch and many well wishers. The
boat was much more than we had expected.
It handled beautifully, everything worked well and it was so comfortable
in every way. We congratulated each
other on a great new acquisition and looked forward to the next time we would
be underway.
MV Fish’n Chips (Our first Boat)
Some History
Rick was born
and raised in Winnipeg but the water has always drawn him. After completing his Engineering degree he
went to deep sea diving school in New York and thought he wanted to be a
commercial diver. He had trouble with
visa’s and working in the States so he ended up not pursuing that. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise
because diving as a hobby is much more fun.
When Rick
moved out to the coast he lived in Gold River and Campbell River on Vancouver Island
while working for MacBlo as a project engineer.
He bought his first boat, the Fish-n-Chips, and felt that in order to
justify the expense of it he would take out dive charters with his friends. He and five other guys went to the Queen
Charlottes to dive for one month. He
didn’t have much boating experience at the time so it was quite the adventure
for him.
Rick has had the Fish’n Chips since
1992. Before that he was bombing around
in a 14 foot inflatable. “Now that was
quite a jump” one would think. But he
had the knack and made the transition without too much folly. “The trick with big boats,” said one boat
broker, “is that you must take her out of gear and not get her going too fast –
neutral is the best gear.” That’s how he
got started and the rest came naturally.
He took the
Fish’n Chips mainly to the Gulf Islands on the weekends but when spring and
winter came, he tried to achieve his goal of becoming a Scuba Dive Charter by
taking out friends. This is the time
when he got the most experience. Deep in
the winter months his guests would arrive on Friday and they wouldn’t depart
until 700 PM when it was pitch black.
His logic was that there was no use trying for daylight since it was
non-existent by 500 PM when most of his passengers were just getting off
work. What better way to get experience
in night cruising.
The Catch-Up
Catch-up is our tender boat. It is a twelve and
a half foot RIB – rigid inflatable boat.
We had it built by a company in Langley, B.C. called Polaris Inflatable Boats. They have built several larger boats of the
same type for the Canadian Coast Guard.
It has a four stroke 50hp. Mercury outboard with tiller steering. It has an electric tilt which is very useful
for motoring into shallow water. We need
a large, stable, powerful boat for scuba diving and reconnaissance missions in
remote areas.
When people
first look at the boat they almost always say, “Wow, that’s a lot of motor on
there! This thing must really
move!” In fact, it only goes twenty-six
knots and when it is loaded with the two of us, our scuba tanks and gear it is
not overpowered. Because of its
stability and power it allows us to navigate through tidal rapid areas.
When we
first bought the boat we towed it behind our 34’ Californian - MV
Fish-N-Chips. One sunny day, just after
we launched our new girl, we took our friends Margot and Bob for a “putt” in
the North Arm of the Fraser. I asked
Margot and Bob to help us by putting their heads together to choose a name for
our new boat. I added that it had to
compliment the name of the Fish-N-Chips.
In a blink Margot said, “Catch-Up!
You tow it behind the boat so it’s “catching up” and it’s red!” We liked it so the name stuck.
We have
equipped the Catch-Up with an Icom VHF radio, a portable Garmin GPS/Sounder,
one hundred feet of road with a collapsible anchor and a bilge pump. For diving purposed we had Polaris, install
extra handles to assist getting in and out of the water and to tie off
equipment. We also had extra rubber pads
installed for wear protection when hauling in scuba equipment and/or trap lines
while prawning or crabbing. We can also
attach a downrigger from off the bench seat/pontoon.
One long
weekend we went for a trip down the river to meet with our friends, Mark and
April, at Fort Langley. We tied up at
the dock across from Fort Langley by the Billy Miner Pub. It’s a nice dock but at the time we didn’t
know that it was also a high theft location.
We had dinner in the pub, partied and danced in the boat until the early
hours and retired. When we woke up the
next morning the Catch-Up was gone! We
immediately called the Fraser River patrol only to find there was only a recorded
message. We next called the RCMP and
they said they can’t help because they don’t have a boat to go on the river to
look for the thief. The most hope came
from talking to a man that works a side-winder at the mill next to the
dock. He said there was a local thief
who went by the name of “Frenchie” whose typical scheme was to take a boat,
drag it up river to the Kanaka Creek park and hide it in the shallow slough
until he could get a vehicle into the parking lot from the Lougheed Highway
side and remove his “loot”. We moved our
boat behind McMillan Island and anchored there by the paddle wheeler dock. We made several phone calls to the RCMP
asking if they had heard anything. By
the next day we had a call from the RCMP saying that the ranger from the Kanaka
Creek Park had seen a red shape in the swampy area by the parking lot that
might be our tender. Luckily, we had our
friends’ small “rubber ducky” dinghy with a 5hp outboard to take us up the
swallow creek to investigate. Alleluia,
it was the Catch-Up! The thief had
deflated the pontoons and stripped all the equipment off. Gone was the motor, the radio, the
GPS/Sounder, antennae, bilge pump and various ropes and fenders. We were more concerned whether the boat had
been damaged. We pumped it up and she
was okay! We towed her back to the
mother ship and celebrated! We had
already been in touch with our insurance agent and the claim was handled well
and the boat was restored to its original condition.
Our Kayaks
When I first met Rick I had a 14 foot
runabout – an older model Horston Glascraft.
Together we managed to sell the boat and decided to buy two kayaks with
the proceeds from the sale. Initially we
weren’t sure just what we wanted or needed in the way of kayaks. We were fortunate to be invited out to learn
first hand about kayaking with my old friend, Carole Gwin. She and I met as neighbors in 1982 and have
been fast friends ever since.
She has an 18 foot fiberglass sea kayak
and two polypropylene 12 footers that she bought used from a rental
outfit. She started with a poly boat and
later, when she got really serious, she bought an expensive fiberglass model to
go ocean kayaking with. She took us out
into Indian Arm from Balaclava Park and we spent the day paddling up and around
Raccoon Island in Indian Arm Marine Park giving it a go! After one day of lovely sunny paddling we
knew 
we wanted boats of our own.
We needed boats that could be easily
stored on the Fish-n-Chips. We also knew
we didn’t want to have to worry about the delicate handling of fiberglass
kayaks nor did we want that expensive a boat.
Our use would be paddling about onto many different shorelines and even
though we are careful with our equipment the fiberglass model didn’t fit our
style.
After doing some shopping around we bought
from an independent distributor in North Vancouver who sold Necki boats out of
his home. Carole’s boats had foot pedal
rudders but we decided we didn’t need those; a simple skeg would work just fine
for us. We asked to have an air bladder
installed into the bow of each boat in case we tipped out and that was it for
extras. We chose twelve foot boats that
would fit in the port side gunnels of the Fish-n-Chips where we seldom walked
anyway as there’s no door on that side.
The boats fit perfectly there one on top of the other and with only a
twelve foot length they slid easily along that side without protruding into the
stern or the bow area. The cost for two,
with all the gear: paddles, leash,
skirts, and paddle floats came to a tidy three thousand dollars. They’re
nothing fancy but very practical and fun to use.
Now we store them on the Sea Foam’s Pilot
House roof. We typically paddle a five
mile radius which seems to be a comfortable range. The boats have about a 3 knot hull
speed. We have visited many places where
a boat or tender can’t go. Sliding
effortlessly along in the water, looking over the side at the shoreline or
staring at the bottom has given us hours of pleasure. We have also been very impressed with the
stability of the boats. We have been in
some skunky weather with them – three footers with little space between waves,
and the boats have always carried us home safely. Some of the nicest photos and videos that
Rick has taken have been off the bow of his red kayak. (See Prevost Island”).
Contact Information
Contact us, we would like to hear from you.
E-mail addresses:
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Contact Carol-Ann at:
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Contact Rick at:
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Phone: 604 854-0970 |
Phone: 604 855-2079 |
Last
revised: March, 2013
Copyright © 2006 Carol-Ann Giroday
and Rick LeBlanc