Monday, August 13, 2018

'Tiki' - My Enterprise sailing dinghy

I just sold my small, British designed, sailing dinghy I named Tiki.  I had her for three summers and had lots of fun sailing around English Bay and in between the ever-present tankers in front of Jericho Beach in Vancouver.  I purchased  her with a car trailer where I did the in and out (putting up and taking down the mast each time) until I got a spot at Jericho Sailing Centre.





As it was an older wooden boat, covered in glass, I inevitably had to do some work on her as there were spots of 'soft' wood, i.e. moist and rotting, here and there.  I replaced the transom and patched up a few spots on the side.  Also, once out sailing, the teak tiller snapped right where it joins the rudder... luckily I was not too far out as I had to control the rudder with my arm in the water and steer her back to beach. 





















The Enterprise has been around since the mid-fifties.  Here is a bit of its history from Wikipedia;
"It's a two-man sloop rigged sailing dinghy with distinctive blue sails.  Despite being one of the older classes of dinghies, it remains popular in the United Kingdom and about a dozen other countries and is used for both cruising and racing. It has a combination of size, weight, and power which appeals to all ages and to sailing schools.  The Enterprise is accredited as an international Class by the International Sailing Federation, the ISAF".   Mine was probably 50 years old, most likely made in Canada,  but the markings on the bottom of the sails said Portsmouth,  England 1966.  











ADDENDUM:   A few years later after having sold Tiki, I saw her by chance at Manson's Landing, on Cortes island!  I was visiting my friends Erik and Naomi and there it was, on the beach, next to "Seaweed" Erik's old outrigger canoe that he built a decade ago.  I knew that the guy who bought it from me was bringing it to Vancouver Island (the trailer came with the boat) and he told me he was most likely going to use it as a tender for his much larger sailboat.  Sure enough, it looked like there had been a motor mounted on the transom and he replaced the traveler for sailing with a storage box and added a couple of  cleats on the foredeck. It was looking a. bit weathered, but I thought, at least she was still being used and in the lovely waters of Cortes Island. 



Cortes,  October 2021