New Member from Alaska

Hello all, and Happy New Year!

I've been browsing and enjoying this forum for several months, and figured it was past time to sign up and introduce myself. My wife and I purchased a 39' 1978 Universal Sedan (Taiwan trawler) in Seattle a year ago, and brought it up the Inside Passage from LaConner WA to Whittier AK last June. I posted a detailed trip report of our passage on the Alaska Powerboating Forum here. You'll find the start of our saga at Post #24 on Page 2, and it continues from there.

Our boat, Room Seven, was owned and completely refit by the owner of LaConner Maritime Service as his family's personal vessel so no expense was spared. After I bought it, I had the same yard do a bunch more upgrades before we headed north. After arriving in our home waters of Prince William Sound on July 1st, we managed to get another 18 days on the water before putting her to bed for the winter. We're looking forward to a full, fun 2013 season which for us will begin about mid-April.

I've been delighted to read some of the many helpful and informative posts at Trawlerfoum, and I look forward to participating.

Kind regards,

Steve Lloyd

Steve: Welcome aboard. Room 7 intrigues me but maybe it's too risque to publish here.

Greetings,
Welcome aboard.

Hello steve, and welcome!

We made that passage ourselves this spring in late April and keep our boat in Seward.

If you're in Whittier you must have bought one of the cliffside slips??? Either that or you've been on the waitlist at the city dock for 15+ years

Glad to see you here, and hope to run into you out in the sound. we tend to hang around the south west PWS ourselves.

Welcome, hope you enjoy your boat as much as we do.

Kevin, Yes we're at Cliffside L-2. Didn't even bother getting on the list for the public harbor (life's too short). Some of our favorite PWS spots are Perry Island, Cochran Bay, Eaglek Bay... the list goes on. We're looking forward to exploring some of the distance reaches of the Sound like Knight Island that were out of reach with our 140-gallon, twin-gas Tollycraft. Will definitely look for you out on the water this summer!

Mike, I see you're based in Sidney. We cleared customs at Sidney Harbor Marina at the end of our first day northbound from LaConner. This was my first day at the helm, and my first solo docking of our seemingly huge 39-footer after moving up from my old Tolly 26. What a relief it was to glide smoothly into my slip there and cut the engines without having scratched anybody's paint! We'd kept a bottle of bubbly on ice and toasted our arrival, Canada, and Room Seven in one of the tidiest and most scenic marinas I've ever seen.

Thanks to everyone for your welcoming words!

You bring back very old memories of my bringing the boat home from Vancouver. When we picked it up the owner had it docked on the end breakwater out of it's house, we just put it in forward gear and pulled out into Vancouver Harbour without turning the wheel. Now the arrival in Sidney was a different story 90 degree turn into a slip that was only 6" wide than we were with the fenders down. How am I going to dock this huge (at least that what it seemed) boat, our previous was a 30' sailboat. But like your docking, not a scratch but no nails left on any fingers. The first is the worst, now it is just second nature.

One day maybe we will be fortunate enough to visit your neck of the woods. Going to Alaska on Rochepoint has always been our dream, work stands in our way right now

Welcome Steve. I started reading your trip entries. You can bet I will finish those. I love hearing about your part of the world.

Steve, welcome aboard. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the log of your adventure north. Wonderful pictures and brilliant account.

Welcome Steve, Alaska is on my bucket list. Likely by air, no passage from the Great Lakes.

Welcome, Steve. Lots of differences, I suspect, between cruising in your part of the country and my part of the country, but a boat is a boat and we all have the same or similar problems and challenges. I'm looking forward to some enjoyable reading of your trip report.

John

Great trip log Steve. We pretty well mirrored your journey at the same time this past summer. As both you and Ken Sanders have noted, the crossing to Whittier from Inian Pass can get pretty wild. What is your preferred weather buoy(s) or GRIB indicator for a go, no-go decision when making the crossing?

sunchaser said:

What is your preferred weather buoy(s) or GRIB indicator for a go, no-go decision when making the crossing?

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We pieced together our forecast based on the NOAA zones (S to N) from Cape Edgecombe to Cape Fairweather, to Icy Cape, to Cape Suckling, and finally to Gore Point. Couldn't really find any buoys that told the Gulf story, unlike the Canadian West Sea Otter buoy when we prepared to cross Queen Charlotte Strait, which reads actual swell height and duration.

Our crossing had been planned far in advance for the last few days in June, a window which historically has some of the most settled conditions that can be found in the Gulf. I've done the trip two other times on a 108' boat, once in March and another year in April, and no way would I want to be out there in my 39' that time of year!

Steve,
I too wish to welcome you to this forum. I was fortunate to have found your voyage in the early stages while surfing the web. Now I have the site bookmarked.
Having been in the gulf in my younger days on tugboats, I marvel that you had the weather you did and God Bless that you did. Great voyage recording and the photos really made the following so much more enjoyable.
Please continue to share with the forum on your adventures or modifications you make while owning your new vessel.
Would have enjoyed having meeting you as you passed through Ketchikan.
A.M.Johnson
27' Marben pocket trawler
"I tried to catch some fog, but I mist"

sunchaser said:

Great trip log Steve. We pretty well mirrored your journey at the same time this past summer. As both you and Ken Sanders have noted, the crossing to Whittier from Inian Pass can get pretty wild. What is your preferred weather buoy(s) or GRIB indicator for a go, no-go decision when making the crossing?

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I hired a weather router for the gulf crossing. $75 a day for four days total.

He asked our operational limits, and gave us go/no advice and allot more based on that.

If the forecast was for flat water I would have just went for it, possibly direct from Elfin Cove to Seward, but of course the water wasnt flat this trip, hense the weather router.

Hey Steve! AKBASSKING here. Read your trip on Outdoors......Welcome here....Tom

LaBomba said:

Welcome Steve, Alaska is on my bucket list. Likely by air, no passage from the Great Lakes.

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Why not book a cruise?

markpierce said:

Why not book a cruise?

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Mark
A cruise from Washington to Alaska on a rabbit hutch ship vs your own vessel? You can't be serious.

sunchaser said:

Mark
A cruise from Washington to Alaska on a rabbit hutch ship vs your own vessel? You can't be serious.

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Cruise ships, not just our rinky-dink boats, can be fun too.

I prefer the Princess round-trip San Francisco-to-San Francisco Alaskan trips to avoid flying and have additional at-sea days where someone makes my bed, prepares my meals, washes the dishes, serves me drinks, and provides diversified entertainment. Do you have a crooner/piano player at your boat's bar?



Besides, their first-class accommodations are cheaper than our small-boat fourth-class accommodations.

Gee, that sounds really fun Mark

markpierce said:

Why not book a cruise?

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I cannot imagine anybody that has a trawler taking a cruise ship on the same coast they live on.

ksanders said:

I cannot imagine anybody that has a trawler taking a cruise ship on the same coast they live on.

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"Open your mind."

Spent five decades camping (as in backpacking). It's now time to "be attended to" some of the time.

markpierce said:

"Open your mind."

Spent five decades camping (as in backpacking). It's now time to "be attended to" some of the time.

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Backpacking and all it entails id a far cry from exploring the inside passage in your own boat.

Its not like you're sleeping in a tent and pottying behind a rock, like Backpacking.

The inside passage is what our boats were made for.

Believe me. It's not that dissimilar.

markpierce said:

Believe me. It's not that dissimilar.

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Oh come on. Thats pure malarky and we both know it.

Now, if your boat was on the east coast bareboat chartering might be an option.

I'm in Alaska. I might consider a bareboat charter in the Bahamas or something like that, just because it is so time consuming or expensive to get my boat to the east coast.

To each his own.

markpierce said:

Do you have a crooner/piano player at your boat's bar?

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I do, but no piano.

markpierce said:

Why not book a cruise?

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Why not just watch a television documentary in a hotel bar?

Somehow seeing Alaska from the deck of a cruise ship or on one of their "shore excursions" seems like reading a Classics comic book or Cliff's notes.

Kind of sad really but at least it keeps the crowds away from the beaches and trails and the really nice places.

ksanders said:

The inside passage is what our boats were made for.

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Couldn't agree more. Try this from a cruise ship!

I was born in Juneau and spent 25% of my life in Alaska and I would like to do the passage via cruise ship once. But I have limited funds and those funds could be better spent elsewhere. That could change when I reach 80 though. Very unlikely the funds but best time spent.

Alaska is a great deal more than bears and fish. It's almost magic at times. The seas, mountains, river mouths, old fishing villages, Alaskan natives and old timers, The great white wilderness of winter, mining, oil, logging and fishing done in the wilderness but the greatest element of Alaska is it's geography. THE LAND. And nowhere else is a land so influenced by the sea. From ice to tides to sheer number of miles of coastline and places like Yakatat where one can stand on a beach and look up to glacier clad mountains 18000 feet high right in front of your face. Much of this can be seen and enjoyed from a cruise ship. Far far from all of it of course but I've talked to many people I know that have made the trip and enjoyed it very much. And the concept of their world will never be the same.