The Boat



Our little floating home is a 1982 Cooper 416 pilot house sailboat.  The Boat is 42' long and 14' wide at her widest point.  She is a good boat.  We named her Adventurer.  She was made on Vancouver Island by a bunch of crazy Canadians back in the early 80's when apparently shag carpet was in style.  They put that shag on everything...the walls, the floors, they probably would have put it in the fridge if someone would have let them, just to keep the Molson's from clanging around.

Our boat has 2 bedrooms and one bathroom (the brochure claims that it has a soaking tub, although you can only really soak your big toe), a little kitchen, a dining room, a navigation station complete with a place to drive from inside the boat when the weather is nasty, and even extra places to sleep if you are about 3 feet tall and able to contort into very uncomfortable shapes.  We have enough storage for Brenda's 22 pairs of shoe's (yes I counted) and still enough space to carry all of our needed spare parts and a few months worth of food. 

When we bought the Boat, nothing worked.  When I say nothing, I mean NOTHING.  You couldn't turn on a light, flush a toilet, turn on the stove, hoist a sail, nothing.  We bought her knowing all of that and had a vision that she would be the right Boat to take us around the world anyway.  She was structurally sound and could be modified how we wanted. We have held her, squeezed her, fed her, read her stories, and tucked her in at night, all in the hopes that one day, she would take care of us. 

Brenda workin' the sander
At this point, everything has been either upgraded, replaced, rebuilt, repaired, scrapped, painted, fiber-glassed, wired, plumbed, or rigged.  And when I say everything, I mean EVERTHING.  Even the shag carpeting is gone.
 
We carry about 150 gallons of water and have a water-maker which turns the sea water into clean drinking water, so we are never without clean water.  We carry about 150 gallons of diesel so we can drive the boat when there is no wind for about 1,000 miles.  We have solar panels and a generator to make electricity.  We have an auto pilot to drive the boat for days on end.  We have 5 gps's so we never get lost (and we have a sextant for you old timey sailors as a backup to the gps's). We have radar to see when pirates are chasing us.  We have an enormous medical kit so we can perform an emergency appendectomy in the middle of the ocean if needed.  And just in case everything falls apart on us...we have a life raft. 

Adventurer is ready to go....and so is the Team!












Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 11, 2016 at 9:20 AM

    Hello Adventturer crew! I found your blog while looking for other Cooper 416 owners. We are currently in the Pugent Sound with our's and preparing to head down the west coast this year. I would love to hear what information/recomendations you are willing to share about sailing a Cooper. It looks like you have an additional stay just in front of your roller furling and I'm curious how useful you find it?

    Cheers,
    Sara

    ReplyDelete

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