ABOUT S/V MARCY

Marcy

Cape Horn to starboard

In 2002 we (a working couple with limited assets) got an idea to do some long range cruising. We scrutinized boat listings. Soon we discovered (perhaps because we wanted to be sure there was enough money left over from buying the boat to fit it out and actually go sailing) that suitable vessels were unaffordable to us, and the ones we could afford weren’t suitable. We considered listings located from British Columbia to California, and calculated price per pound for each to quickly sort out relative prices. Eventually we found the 47 foot long Marcy, built in 1984, languishing in Maple Bay on Vancouver Island.

Marcy had too much mast

She had been for sale for quite a while, and sported an unusual rig – schooner with only staysails, no booms – that made her unlikely to be sold easily. Marcy seemed suitable to us in most aspects, other that that rig, and with the aid of a low price and a favorable exchange rate she was ours.

Cockpit dominated by the mainmast

We sketched a sail plan with offshore sailing in mind, a sloop rigged as a cutter (“slutter”) with a big full battened main, a 7/8 jib, and a narrow staysail for windy conditions. We balanced the sail plan with less lead (the distance between center of effort and center of lateral resistance) than usual, aiming for less weather helm and easy steering for open ocean sailing. Since we had no plans for the boat, we calculated the clr by tracing the underwater outline from a photograph on cardboard, cutting it out, and balancing it carefully on a pin. We hauled at a yard in Ballard, and using the old foremast as material for a boom we converted the rig. We launched in 2003 and headed out the Ballard Locks to saltwater for a shakedown cruise. Main, jib, staysail, and spinnaker were made at Lidgard sails in Ballard. Peter was heard to mutter something like “I really hope this works….” as we hoisted sail on Puget Sound. We needn’t have worried, the balance turned out perfect - Marcy was always very light on the helm. We never encountered any risky lee helm, and the windvane and autopilot worked very well in all conditions.

In 2004 and 2005 we sailed locally and fitted a Max Prop, batteries, EPIRB, solar panels, electronics, inverter, HF and VHF radios, watermaker, windvane, autopilot, and a Force 10 propane galley stove.

At anchor in Fiji

Lahina Yacht Club mooring

We sailed Marcy almost 50,000 miles, leaving Seattle in August 2006 for a westabout circumnavigation via Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. In May 2010 we crossed our outbound track on a passage from Chile to Hawaii. We sailed on home to Seattle via Sitka, Alaska, and promptly got jobs again to restore our finances while we still lived aboard.
The story of that circumnavigation is chronicled in this blog: https://svmarcy.blogspot.com