REACQUIRING A GRAMPIAN 26
Chris is a buddy of mine and I helped him pick out his boat. I convinced Chris and one of my other buddies to buy Grampians here (Great Slave Lake) this year. My other buddy Jeremy picked up a 26.
In July my sister and I were out sailing with Jeremy on his G26. As we were sailing across the bay we reminisced about my Grandfathers G26 on Lake Ontario (Jacmar). It was the boat we learned to sail on when we were children. He sold it in 1986 just before he passed away. My sister has recently taken on a new job and is doing very well financially. She said that if I could find Jacmar and convince the current owners to sell it that she would buy it.
Well, three days later I had it tracked down, told the owners who I was and my sister's desire to have our Grandfather's G26. At first they didn't want to sell it but when they heard our story they said yes.
So, the sale was on. The trick of course was to get it up here. At first, I was going to drive down and pick it up using my sisters truck and my trailer with some modifications. Unfortunately, her truck packed it in about 750 km outside of Yellowknife. I didn't even get out of the NWT.
So, we contacted some professional movers. Incredibly expensive. However, we got lucky. We found a company who was owned and operated by an elderly gentleman who wanted to come up to YK to visit his son who just happens to live here. He gave us a really good deal. So, the boat was on it's way.
Half an hour outside of Perry Sound they hit a moose and did $25,000 damage to their truck. Fortunately, no damage was done to the boat. However, the port side of the boat was covered in moose crap from bow to stern. It's amazing how difficult that stuff is to wash off. They had a replacement truck on site the next day and once again headed for Yellowknife. Three days later and 30 km out of Yellowknife, they had a blow out. Once again the boat made it through.
On the Wednesday when the boat arrived we put up the mast and got the boat ready for the launch on Thursday. Unfortunately, the only operational crane in town broke down on Tuesday afternoon. The boat came up in its original cradle on a flat bed trailer. On Thursday when we found out the crane was broken we informed the guy who brought up the boat. He was very upset as he was planning to drive back to Kingston starting on Friday.
He told us that he had to get the boat off the cradle and wanted to take it off onto the gravel. This made us very nervous. VERY NERVOUS.
After about an hour of debate we convinced him to try to back it into the lake off of the flat bed trailer. He was reluctant and when he was backing it in he managed to jackknife the trailer and get is completely stuck. The boat was only half in. A tow truck, two anchors and three hours of pushing and pouting we finally managed to get it off of the cradle and into the lake (had to cut the back of the cradle out with a chainsaw).
Finally we were ready to go sailing. Our first sail was on Friday. It was awsome.
On Saturday we took part in a three day race to Moose Bay and back (30 nautical miles one way). Basically we race out Saturday and race back Monday with a bit of a regatta on Sunday.
We won the race......
it took 10 hours and 43 minutes to finish the race on Saturday (we were over an hour and a half ahead of the other boats) and 4 hours 32 minutes to finish the race on Monday (we were 15 minutes behind the lead boat, a Contessa 32, and finished second on leg two - actual time)
On corrected time overall we were way out in front.
To see some interesting photos of the launch and other sailing adventures on Great Slave Lake please take a look at here- - - It's worth a look.
(Thanks for this to Glen R. Abernethy from Great Slave Lake, NWT)
UPDATE
Quite by chance, I came across your site. Then for some reason I looked at the story on re-acquiring a Grampian 26. Wasn’t that a Great Story! But especially for us!
We bought that same Grampian in 1973. We owned it for 3 seasons. Cruised with our family and even won some races at the Kingston Yacht Club. It was called Candy at the time.
Then we got 2 footitis and looked for a bigger boat. That Christmas at KYC party, I told Jack Abernethy that Candy was for sale and he decided to buy her! Renamed her Jacmar. Next summer Jacmar was a team boat for the 1976 Olympics held in Kingston. Jack took the Russian team coaches out to watch the races (i was now his crew!)! We eventually bought a Mirage 27/28 and then later a Kirby 30. Jack crewed for me on both boats. I recall when he eventually sold Jacmar to a professor at Queens U. Saw her around from time to time.
So pleased to hear she is back with the family!
Graham Moss