Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue (RCMSAR) Coxswain

Volunteering with Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue (RMCSAR) has been one of highlights of coming back to Canada for this simple sailor.  I am out on the water a lot with work and play - 35 different boats over 100 different boat trips just last year - but it is great to learn new skills and have a higher purpose.  

Over the last five years under some great tutelage and mentorship I have slowly progressed to coxswain.  I was not very daunted by the operation of the vessel although a bit different than my usual boating; however, the wide scope of our missions is daunting.  Looking forward to some new challenges !

Copied from RCMSAR 36's social media:

The road to becoming a RCMSAR coxswain is long. The coxswain is the captain of the Fast Rescue Craft responsible for the crew, the vessel, and of course the successful completion of the assigned mission. A station’s coxswains are also the instructors for the continuous training that is required to keep a station mission-ready.

 

RCMSAR HQ has just promoted RCMSAR 36’s Max Shaw to “Coxswain” after five years of service, which included the completion of the 105 required sign-offs, the famed Coast Guard RHIOT course, the RCMSAR Coxswain Leadership II Course, and 400+ hours of service. Max is a Canadian Armed Forces veteran and now a Yacht Broker and Yachtmaster Instructor in Sidney.

 

More on RCMSAR 36 here: https://www.marinerescue.org/

Boat Show and Seminar Season plus Sea Trial Opportunities

 

 

It is that time of year again !  Liz is off to the Toronto Boat Show in a few days and then it is Vancouver, Seattle, Miami and then likely La Grande Motte.  Whew ...

We just released our semi-annual newsletter and here is a snippet of it below:

Upcoming Boat Shows and Seminars:

Toronto Boat Show – 18 to 25 Jan 2025. Elizabeth will be there in person 18 and 19 Jan to participate in the Women & Cruising panel discussion highlighting stories from our 36,000nm trip around the Pacific with two and then three children and presenting the “It’s Your Trip Too” seminar. When not presenting, she will be at the Swan Yacht Sales booth to discuss Nautitech catamarans and Bavaria Yachts. We will be doing presentations throughout the show via “Zoom” as well

Vancouver Boat Show – 29 Jan to 2 Feb   Elizabeth and Max will both be there. Elizabeth will be doing several presentations and acting as Master of Ceremonies for the Women’s Day event on 1 Feb. Max will be at the “in-water” portion of the show with a variety of new Dufour and Bavaria yachts.

Seattle Boat Show – 31 Jan to 8 Feb. Elizabeth will be presenting at the Women’s Day on 3 Feb and Max will be on-site 4 to 8 Feb with a Nautitech 40 and new Bavaria and Dufour yachts.

Miami Boat Show – 12 to 16 Feb plus 17 Feb Sea Trials. Max will be there mostly at the Nautitech stand but also with Dufour as required. The highlight of the Miami show will be the 17 Feb sea trials on a Nautitech 44 – this is definitely by reservation so please let me know soonest if you are interested.

La Grande Motte Multihull Show

Mahina Expeditions Offshore Cruising Seminar – 8 to 9 Mar. After a one-year gap, Elizabeth and Max will be back teaching with John Neal on his intensive “Offshore Cruising” seminar in Anacortes. This books up quickly, so please let us know if you are interested.

Always great to co-teach with John Neal.

Women on the Water – 12 April 2025 . Elizabeth will be the Keynote speaker at this one day event in Victoria. Let us know if you would like tickets or more information 

La Grande Motte Multihull Show – 23 to 27 April. If you are interested in catamarans, this is the show to attend. There will be sea trials available on the Nautitech 44 and 48 so it is a worthwhile event ! Again, please let us know soonest if you are interested in attending this show.

Nautitech 48 Sea Trial at La Grande Motte.

 BC Boat Show – 1 to 4 May. This is our local show at Port Sidney, and we always have a good selection of new boats - sail and power - to view and then sea trial.

Please let us know if you would like tickets to any of these events and especially if you would like to do the Nautitech Sea Trials in Miami or La Grand Motte.

 

New Year's Eve Cruise with the Full Crew (+2)

After 12 years aboard we moved back into our house near Sidney that we have not lived in for 16 years.  A bit of an adjustment being "dirt dwellers" again !  The older two kids are off to university - Victoria now in third year Software Engineering at UVic and Johnathan in second year Mechanical Engineering at the Royal Military College of Canada.

So it was great to have everyone back for the holidays and do our annual New Years Eve cruise in Fluenta.

A few photos from the trip:

You can see Fluenta at anchor in the lower right of the photo

Heading to the beach !

And a bit different from our cruising experience, a luncheon at the Union Club of BC with the Ex-Cadet Club:

Search and Rescue Coxswain Leadership Course

 I recently took another step in the long road to becoming a coxswain in RCMSAR by taking the Coxswain Leadership IIB course in Sooke.  While RHIOT with the Coast Guard was intense and so much fun ... this was intense and serious work (and kind of fun).  The focus was leadership and blind navigation with the course split between time on the water in a Titan 300 RHIB and in the impressive simulator.  With only six students and two instructors there was plenty of instruction and constant evaluation. Oh, and I even passed with a recommendation to advance.

Fluenta Family Back in Pacific Yachting

When we returned from our Pacific adventure, Marianne Scott wrote a delightful feature for Pacific Yachting describing our travels.  She recently followed up to see how we, and especially the kids, had adjusted to this land life.

As always, Marianne's writing is fun to read and she captured some great pictures of the "kids" (who are of course now adults in their own right).  You can find us in the October edition of Pacific Yachting.  The full magazine is available at the link.