In the beginning

In 1981 my wife to be and I finished a Hughes 31 fiberglass hull, and cruised the BC coast; in 1986, we finshed the interior of a 39ft steel hull, sailed to Hawaii and honeymooned through a couple islands. Then life happened - two kids and jobs taking us across Canada separated us from ocean capable boats. But going offshore in dependable boats was in our blood, and the vision of sailing to Tahiti just wouldn't die - so in 2001 we began building the hull that will finally do that - in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. Construction continues today, in Campbell River BC - so we might not be in Tahiti yet - but we're getting closer!!

March 2018 update - came across Indonesia and the Indian Ocean late 2017, stopped at the top of Madagascar for a couple weeks, then ran down the Mozembeq channel and rounded Africa in Dec. It was a busy time, and DreamCatcher performed superbly under a wide range of conditions - saw white water to my knees at the mast in the Mozembeq, 200mile days in both Indian and Atlantic oceans, spent days under spinnaker working to keep my babe moving in very light winds.

Left Capetown mid Jan 2018, bouncing off St Helena and Fernando de Noronha islands as we ran up and across the Atlantic, landing in Barbados. Going to slow down now, and spend two seasons cruising the Caribbean before doing the Panama Canal. It’s an amazing life.

Nov 2016, Brisbane Australia.....not all that far from New Zealand! Spent bulk of the cruising season in Fiji, finishing with a pretty quick run through Vanuatu and New Caledonia. Boat doing great, still a stand out amongst the cruising fleet.
- if you want to keep up with our travel detail, look for Norm Facey on facebook - waaay easier to do updates with pics with marginal internet.

April 2016, Whangarei New Zealand aboard SV DreamCatcher....It still floats! Did Marquesas, Tuamotus, Tahiti thru to Bora Bora, Cooks, Beverage Reef, Nuie, Tonga and then down to New Zealand. Boat is great - though I do wish I'd gone with unpainted aluminum from a maintenance perspective (find I have to go around monthly to deal with paint chips to keep her rust free).


I loved building, and enjoy telling people "we built this boat" - but take a good look at the price of used boats before you start..... consider boat hunting in the Caribbean, and just sail a nice solid boat downwind - can save 10 years of building!

Plating the radius chine

Radius Chine plates

If I had one section of the plating to do over again, this would be it.
1) after starting everything else at the stern, we began at the bow with the chine plates (thinking the bow was more accurate) But the bow is also the most difficult area to fit, due to being the greatest compound curvature, and the only place where two radius chine pieces meet. We should have started the chine plates at the rear - would have had more experience at fitting them that would have helped do a yet better job at the bow.

2) plate trimming to this point was just dressing the edges - I was too tentative with the grinder when it came to trimming the radius chine plates, especially at the bow. That became a non-issue by the time we got to the stern...the hull came out well, but it would have been fairer yet if we'd been more aggressive trimming up forward.



The chines arrived fully rolled and curved from CNC rolling mill in Denmark (they did the entire kit)




 You can tell we were fighting to fit right off the start - didn't like how much we were fighting one side, so we fitted both sides at the same time to balance out the load. It worked, but we were still fighting too much. Note the hydraulic jack under the bow.




We persevered.....



and in the end got it done. It did get easier as we went....(because we were going at it backwards!)




And finally she is all plated - July 23rd 2001, welding out

Started hull construction Feb 24, 2001 - 5 months for a bunch of rookies to pull together a 50 ft hull - not bad! Began weld out - stitch welding interior stringers - this is going to take a while.....

And then life struck.....I was offered my dream job in BC, back close to our families.

Discussed the move with our kids - and after a few weeks notice, we're off to an emerald island in the Pacific!  Vancouver Island.....well the emerald might be moss, but it is in the Pacific.

Problem is, the hull is wonderfully fair, and we don't want to try lifting her before it's been welded out. Welder buddy Steve offers to pull together a small group of professional welders to weld out the hull under his guidance - awesome. 


Welding out the hull

Have to thank Steve for the following photos as he tried to keep us abreast of the progress, and comfortable with the welding being done.






Steve laid out the desired welding pattern for his guys, and crosschecked each panel at the end of the day. Also had the areas cleaned up and all welds primed at the end of a shift - to date, the pre-primed hull had been built 100% under cover, and I still dreamed of just a brush blast before painting (LOL)




And throughout the guys were great about keeping an eye on the hull fairness, looking to ensure our sequence was working.
- inside only till it was completely welded.
- longitudinals to hull plate first
- then frames to longitudinals
- then longnitudinal plate welds
- frames to hull plate (in bilge only - through rest of hull the hull is just clear of the frames, per designers specs)
and finally, interior vertical plate seams.




Once inside was complete, the team moved outside, cleaning up/back grinding weld, then doing a good penetration weld. These guys were all experienced pipe welders, and understood the need to stay fair, yet not leak. Over the ensuing years, I went over all the welds multiple times - there were zero welds that I ever felt the need to redo - though I did find 2 different locations where they missed a short section of inside weld - wouldn't have leaked, but they're double sided welds now :)





End of August 2001, and Steve is giving the thumbs up on welding - the hull is ready to go.



Moving a 50 ft hull from Sault Ste Marie Ontario to Campbell River BC 

We looked at a number of ways to get the hull half way across BC:
- rail - there was a rail spur into the building we were in (!), but the 14'6" beam is too wide to go through rail bridges in the Rockies
- freighter - the hull could have gone as deck cargo down the Great Lakes, through the Panama Canal, and back up to Vancouver....but it sure wasn't my first choice (I want that trip to happen floating on her own hull!)
- truck - we were soooo lucky that a) we hadn't progressed to mounting the keel (wouldn't have cleared key overpasses) and b) the beast wasn't 6" wider (would have required a bloody police escort across Canada!). Then were even luckier that a friend's SSM company needed to pick up a low bed load in Vancouver... and was willing to deal with hauling the wide hull. Only trick was that the timing was totally dependent on when the main haul arrived in Vancouver. The boat would have to wait for that, but we'd get a call before they left.

You'd think we'd have a dozen pictures of the boat on that truck - no pics, but an interesting tale....

      I'd identified where the boat could go when it did arrive - there weren't any big empty industrial buildings around that could house the hull (15ft wide doorways aren't that common) but there was a bit of an open field in an industrial area that had two other large sailboats undergoing rebuilds sitting in it, with power available. It was a bit mucky, and I'd have to build my own shed, but it was doable - just definitely a step down from the original building site... talked with the owner of the big crane in town, no issue with the load, just needed to book ahead to ensure they were available.....so it was just a matter of waiting for the call when they left SSM, and we'd have a few days warning (you can see this one coming, can't you?).

      I was out of town in a corporate meeting when I got a call bounced forward from my office - my new admin assistant Lynn let me know that "the truck with my boat just got off the ferry in Nanaimo, and should be in Campbell River inside two hours...... but they need to turn around pronto in order to catch the ferry back tonight, their Vancouver load is waiting".  The boat is closer to Campbell River than I am, and nothing is organized! - but I sure didn't want to hang up a friend who was doing me a favour, so I started asking Lynn for a few key phone numbers - and the lovely lady says "Norm, do you want me to take care of this for you?"  Lynn got to her position by getting things done - but she didn't yet know that the boat in question was 50 ft long and weighed 15 tons. I told her.....and she didn't flinch  "that's okay, I've got it Norm". I hung up the phone and wondered how she'd get it done.....as I headed back into my own work session.

   When I got back into Campbell River that evening, I had two messages - one from my SSM buddy thanking me for the quick turn around - and the other from Lynn telling me the boat was safely offloaded and in a secure area. When I finally got a chance to ask her how she did it, she said " I just called Corky - he took care of it"; Lynn of course knew everyone in the mill, and Corky was the fellow onsite who routinely dealt with moving heavy things - I would never have called him for myself, but Lynn didn't hesitate -the joys of working in a big mill. 
   Corky knew everyone in town, including the large crane operator Ed - and they both didn't like the field I was planning to move into - "you don't want to go there; too soft, and where are you going to work?" Turns out Ed had a large yard and shop he based his cranes out of  just off the highway by the mill - he had the truck go to his yard, picked off the boat, cradle and all, and placed it by his back fence - then told me I was welcome to stay there till the boat was done, knowing that it'd be a while (though even I wasn't expecting another 10 years at that point....)  And - I was given the use of his shop when they weren't in there - which was perfect, given that I was a weekend boat builder. The shop turned out to be a high bay crane equipped drive through maintenance building - with about 30ft of welding table, a couple permanently rigged welders, a HD drill press, and many other portable tools hanging off the walls - obviously a fab shop at some point in it's past. I'd come up smelling like a rose - again.








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