Voyage of SV Sea Star
Sea Star Voyage   |     home
Homeward leg   |   Panama to Mexico   |   Grenada to ABC's   |   Atlantic crossing   |   Spanish Family   |   Portugal   |   Bay of Biscay   |   Ireland and London   |   Isle of Man   |   Castles and Lake District   |    Arrival in Scotland   |   Norway   |   Germany and Denmark   |   Belgium and Holland   |   Heading north   |   Final Days in Paris   |   Vimy Memorial   |   Winter in the City of Light   |   Christmas in Paris   |   St. Jean to Paris by canal   |   Visit Home   |   Up the French Canals   |   More Italian adventures   |   Italy   |   Greece   |   Turkey   |   Cyprus   |   Battle up the Red Sea   |   Oman   |   Looking for family roots   |   Passage to India   |   Surviving the Tsunami   |   Thailand   |   Malaysia   |   Leaving Indonesia for Singapore   |   Arriving in Indonesia   |   Leaving Australia   |   Sailing with friends   |   Yamba   |   Cruising the Oz Coast   |   Christmas Down Under   |   Maps   |   Kids page   |   New Caledonia to Australia   |   Vanuatu   |   Fiji   |   Wallis Island   |   Samoa   |   Canton Island   |   Hawaii   |   Leaving Canada   |   About Us   |   The boat   |   Contact Us
The boat
Sea Star is a 1980 Niagara 35 built in St Catherines, Ontario. To get the boat ready for our offshore adventure we moved the boat to a friend's farm where we replaced all the Lexan and neoprene gaskets in all the hatches. We installed a Cape Horn windvane, Lofrans electric windlass and a new holding tank. We removed the old poly water tanks and glassed in intergral water tanks, increasing our capacity. The Volvo MD11c was removed and overhauled as was the saildrive.Engine instruments were moved from inside a locker to the cockpit.We installed an inner forestay, replaced the forestay and mounted a main traveller arch.A Garmin 76 GPS is mounted down beside the chart table and a handheld Garmin Geko GPS is carried in the abandon ship bag along with the EPIRB, flares and survival gear. We replaced the analog sounder with a Garmin Blue 100 Fishfinder with speedo and installed a new trilight at the top of the mast. A 45 lb CQR and 200 feet of 5/16 hi tensile chain is our primary ground tackle, with a 22 lb Bruce and 35 lb Danforth as backup. A big thanks to all our friends who helped us get Sea Star ready.

 heading for the farm

   Tarped up for the Quadra winter

 installing the self-steering

overhauled engine goes back in


 Russell glassing integral water tanks

  Prepping the hull for painting

 Russell painting the hull

moving the boat back to the sea 7 months later

 gently does it

installing the electric windlass with manual backup


Keith moving the engine instruments