June Cruise on Kozad

We have just returned from spending a wonderful 11 days on the boat, 9 of them touring the Gulf Islands. We absolutely love the boat and had a great time!

As Jan says, we are still married so it could not have been too bad!

We experienced so much during our time on the boat; two drunks in a dinghy going over a log, a pair of swans with four babies, starfish hook retrieving a BBQ, a quick fishing trip on Dana's boat, there is so much to share but it keeping the Blog short and concise we are trying not to bore you!

The following is a map which outlines our cruising paths and corresponding locations where we spent some of time:

1. Friday 13th to Monday 16h June: we departed Brentwood Bay and were pleasantly surprised to meet up with Janice & Glenn on MV Whiteshell. They took the time to stop and wait for us near Deep Bay when they were returning from their cruise.

Janice & GLenn Benoit

We had scheduled one night at Ganges Harbour on Saltspring Island but that quickly changed to three nights after finding the town a joy to explore; especially the Saturday Market with it's produce, crafts, food, and local flair, we also spent a lot of time at the Mouat's Store(s)!

Harbour Walk at Ganges
We met friends Dana & Carmen who arrived on their 20' Trophy fishing machine and also some new people - Mike and Penny Baker from Cowichan Bay!

Dana & Carmen Johnson
Mike & Penny Baker

STARFISH HOOK

This is one of Jan's most favorite experience. Dana retrieved a sunk BBQ using his starfish hook. He located a suitable sized starfish, tied a length of rope around it's body and then lowered his retrieval device down into the water. Ensuring that the starfish was sitting on the BBQ and latched on, he successfully pulled up the BBQ. What a feat of engineering!

2. Monday 16th to Tuesday 17th: we took a short cruise to Galiano Island and tied up to a mooring buoy at Montaque Harbour Marine Park. Great hiking trails, nice broken shell beaches and a unique floating bakery was anchored in the harbour! The bakery is on a 1930's car ferry which has been converted to a live aboard home and bakery! Of course we bought one of almost everything!

Floating Bakery at Montaque Harbour

Dinghy Dock Entrance to Marine Park

Beach at Montaque

3. Tuesday 17th to Wednesday 18th: we went north from Galiano Island to Clam Bay which is situated between Kuper and Thetis Island. We dropped anchor and spent a quiet afternoon with rain; once the weather cleared we dropped the dinghy and explored a channel between the two islands which led over to the west side of the islands. "The Cut" is only accessible at high tide by small craft, dinghy or kayaks.

Kozad at Clam Bay

"The Cut" at High Tide - Thetis & Kuper Islands

4. Wednesday 18th to Thursday 19th: headed off to Pirates Cove on Decourcey Island just south of Nanaimo! This is a very picturesque cove and one of the most popular marine parks in the Gulf Islands. We met a very nice young family on their sailboat "Sylvie"; Ian, Molley and Jackie (4 year old daughter) are from Port Townsend! They were a wealth of information and had a lot of suggestions for places to visit as well as cruising tips for getting to Port Towsend (for our fall rendezvous). Lots of hiking, beach combing, dinghy rowing and exploring while the weather was excellent, including an awesome sunset.

Pirates Cove - Treasure Island!

Kozad Stern Tied at Decourcey Island

Great Beach Combing

Ian on SV Sylvie

Sunset at Pirates Cove
5. Thursday 19th to Friday 20th: started heading south for a night on the dock at Telegraph Harbour Marina on Thetis Island - we needed a shower! This area was one of the recommendations from Ian; a very nice marina with an old fashion ice cream bar, within walking distance a small honor system store, a small coffee roasting operation and nice peaceful roads to walk on. There was a Beneteau Rendezvous scheduled for the weekend - lots of sailboats were on the dock... Also on the dock was SV Sylvie, they were provisioning from the "free" store and coffee shop and stopped in for ice cream.

Telegraph Harbour Marina

Shopping at the "Free Store" on Thetis Island
Pot of Gold Coffee Roasting Co.

Assisting a Young Damsel in Distress

This young girl had an accident and peed her pants, she had taken them off and asked Craig if he could carry her wet clothes; and take her back to her boat!

6. Friday 20th to Saturday 21st: off to Cowichan Bay to explore this eclectic little town and also to have supper with Mike and Penny Baker! We tied up at Pier 66 and heard "Hey Kozad" and would you believe that SV Sylvie was at the Gov't Docks! Once again we have bumped into the Sylvie and her crew!

Ian, Molly & Jackie - Crew of SV Sylvie

We spent a great afternoon eating ice cream at the Udder Guys Ice Cream Bar, Pretzels from the local famous bakery, and stopping into shops and wandering the streets. We met up with Mike and Penny for a wonderful evening, which included a drive to Maple Bay and then a wonderful supper. All in all a great last evening to a wonderful week of cruising.

Pier Homes at Cowichan Bay

Pier 66 - our marina in Cow Bay

This Guy Was Talking to Kozad!

Cow Bay - Mike & Penny's Home Overlooks this Bay

Home: Saturday 21st to Monday 23rd: we headed to Brentwood Bay on Saturday and spent the next two nights on board. We cleaned Kozad and picked up the odds and ends which we needed for the boat! Visited with Jim, Ian and Luke, took them out to the Fifth Street Bar and Grill in Victoria - well worth the time to drop in for a nice meal! We had a vicious wind storm on our last night but surprisingly were able to sleep with all the noise and bouncing around! Said our good byes and then headed off to Kelowna on Monday morning....

We were sad to leave Kozad but luckily we are back for two weeks in the middle of July.

Jim, Ian & Luke - our boys in Victoria!!!

MV Kozad's Summer Cruising Schedule

We have scheduled the following summer cruises and will update the Blog when we get back from each cruise:

• June 13th to 23rd: cruising through the Gulf Islands and East Vancouver Island from Victoria to Nanaimo return
• July 12th to 26th: run up to Comox, Campbell River and Desolation Sound. Time and weather will dictate how far and how long we are in Desolation Sound area before heading back to Victoria (a four day run or so in our 6 knot boat)
• August 9th to 17th: time exploring the Sunshine Coast i/c Princess Louisa Inlet, Texada & Lasqueti Islands (Jan has to work so she won't be on this cruise)
• September 19th to 28th: exploring the San Juan Islands on our way to Port Townsend, Wa. where we are attending a Willard Rendezvous for three days.
  

A Time for Boating

As we purchased Kozad a year earlier than planned; family, work and vacation commitments along with upgrades/work on Kozad kept us from getting out on our boat during the summer and fall of 2007.

This will not be the case in 2008! We have already been out a number of times and have a lot more boating scheduled for June, July, August, September; with plans to keep on cruising into the winter months.

Jan and I were able to get out on Kozad over the Easter Long Weekend with our good friends Garry & Joanne. Then I spent three weeks at the boat (20 April till 11th May) and was able to cruise into the San Juans as well as Bedwell Harbour. This cruise was with the Whiteshell, a 45' Carver, and good friends Glenn, Don, Bob & Terry!

Clearing Customs - Roche Harbour, Wa.

Kozad rafted to Whiteshell at Massacre Bay, Orcas Island, Wa.

Kozad clearing customs, Poet's Cove, B.C.

Cocktails on Kozad at Friday Harbour

Jan and I returned to the boat on the May Long Weekend and anchored out at Beaumont Marine Park in Bedwell Harbour, South Pender Island. We enjoyed three days of hot weather and soaked up the sun while exploring the area by dinghy.

Kozad on Mooring Bouy

Dinghy ride heading under the N & S Pender Island Bridge

Jan Relaxing at Anchor at Poet's Cove, South Pender Island

Jan at the helm exploring South Pender Island

Life is Good, Craig Relaxing While Jan Pilots Kozad

Loving it at Bedwell Harbour!!!

We had a great time and are looking forward to much more time aboard Kozad!

Moving Kozad

We moved Kozad on 19th May, 2007 to Portside Marina in Brentwood Bay, B.C., from Oak Bay Marina which is just outside of Victoria, B.C. Our close friends Janice & Glenn Benoit, who have a lot of boating experience, came along for morale and physical support! Both were needed as this was the first time I had operated a single screw, full keel & displacement hull boat! To say the experience was humbling would be an understatement. Many hands, including feet, fenders and boat hooks were needed to get us off the dock! The experience was heart pounding, but worth a few laughs once we were safely off the dock....

But wait! We still had to get back onto the dock at some point in time......

The wind was howling, there was a minus 2 foot tide which facilitated us leaving just in time to catch a 5 knot current; reducing our speed to 1 knot per hour for the first 90 minutes. The weather and the speed could not dampen our enthusiasm of having our own boat.

We made the trip from Oak Bay to Brentwood Bay in a little over 6.5 hours; Jan likes to say we are in the slow, slow lane of boating, crawling along while all the other traffic is passing us by! She equates us to being on a bicycle while the cars are whising by!

And yes by the way, we did make it onto the docks in Brentwood Bay just fine; mainly due in part to all the extra hands, feet, and opinions on how I should be docking this beast!

The plan now that Kozad was at Portside Marina, was to have Abernathy & Gaudin Boat
Builders in Brentwood Bay, work on the minor items identified during the survey, as well as doing some work on the boat for us.....

We wanted to personalize our boat to our style of boating; being out for extended periods of time at anchor, having access to battery power and an ease of getting on and off the boat while on the hook!

So, we needed new ground tackle (windlass, chain & anchor), a davit system so we could easily launch and retrieve a new Walker Bay Genesis RIB and Yamaha outboard motor, an upgraded electrical system including new batteries, battery charger and inverter, along with a rather large list of additional extras!

As well, we felt obliged to keep the boat in pristine condition after the amount of effort that the previous owners had done in refitting and updating the boat; so now it was our turn to ensure we maintained the boat in like new condition. So, the new leak we found on the rough ride over needed to be taken care of as well as a few other cosmetic and minor structural items.

Well, it was a good thing we bought the boat a year early as the work took a little longer than we thought to finish, along with an unexpected chain plate leak which had destroyed some of the Pilot House coring, and a few minor (but costly) repairs kept us from using the boat in 2007!

We now know what a BOAT unit is - Bring On Another Thousand, as in dollars; Kozad has a few of these units invested since we have taken ownership!

Ah, the joys of owning a boat!

Naming Kozad

Our new boat, of course, had a couple of prior names; the most recent owner had called her Silent Waters II, and before to that she was called Sindbad. Now it was going to be our turn to name this boat!

We chose the name "Kozad" in memory of our very close & dear friends (Iolla & Leonard Cozad; Leonard was given the nick name Cozy). This elderly couple befriended us in our younger years when we were first posted to Campbell River, B.C. (1975 to 1978). They were avid boaters, and Cozy introduced Jan and I to boating, fishing, prawning, crabbing, and many hours of enjoyment on the ocean.

Cozy & Iolla at their 50th Wedding Anniversary

Kozad: the new name for our first boat!

Both Iolla and Cozy passed away twenty years ago - in their mid 80's. We thought it was befitting to name our first boat after this wonderful couple: thus, Cozy reflects the look of the boat and Kozad is the name given in honor of our close friends!


We are looking forward to many enjoyable years cruising the PNW, BC Coastal waters and who knows, maybe even up to and including Alaska if we are brave enough!

Who knows where Kozad will take us!

Quest for Kozad

MV Kozad was purchased in May of 2007 by Craig & Jan Tomash to explore the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia Coastal waters with the goal for an eventual trip to Alaska.

We have always loved the ocean, boating and the outdoors! After 33 years of marriage, walking the docks and dreaming of owning a boat, we almost gave up; with raising three children and moving from one end of the country to the other! Boating was put on the back burner!

Then one fine day in May of 2004, my good friend Glenn Benoit asked me to go boating with him and his brother in law on their newly acquired boat the MV Whiteshell! That was it, I was rocked off my feet by the pure joy, solitude and beauty of boating; so taken by the ocean I was not prepared to come back home! If I had to leave the boat, it should only be to sell everything so we could be on a boat! When I told Jan of my revelation; she looked at me shook her head and said "I have been telling you for thirty years I want to do boating". Funny how things change when it becomes the man's idea?

Jan calmed me down and kept me grounded over the next few years until it was the right time to buy a boat. We planned that spring of 2008 was the time to get a boat; we would be looking for a boat to coincide with my retirement, the kids finishing University, leaving home and when Jan allowed me to make the big step.

So, in 2006 we started looking for the right boat; everyone told us it would take two to three years to find that right boat!

The challenge was to find a suitable boat; one which would be safe, comfortable, easily handled by the two of us and affordable! But once you start looking at boats there are a lot of boats for sale which say they are very nice but really they are not! Jan and I are very particular in having things just right! We wanted just the right boat, one which would allow us to gain experience operating a boat on the coastal waters of British Columbia. But also one which looked nice smelled good and was not in need of a whole lot of work! A boat which also met the wish list of wants, all for a price we could afford. Next to impossible would be the statement to describe our quest!

We started looking; well I did the leg work under the supervision of Jan! After extensive researching, dock walking, numerous boat shows, looking at prospects (none made the list as all smelled bad, to big, to expensive, to old, etc)! I was buying as many Boating magazines as I could and lone behold a day happened when I came upon a one line advertisement on an obscure page of the B.C. Boat Journal!

"1974 Willard 30, beautiful condition, for sale".

After a few dozen phone calls, conferring with other Willard Boat Owners through an on-line site, explaining to Jan that this was a great deal; we made a sight unseen offer on Kozad. Poor Jan, she was at work and I was on the phone buying a boat!
Needless to say, the offer was accepted, and we drove the 10 hour trip to Victoria, B.C. to look and see if we had done the right thing.

The boat was at the Victoria Yacht Club and once we saw this beautiful Willard we were hooked. Jan loved the boat before she even stepped on board, I on the other hand thought "boy this is a small boat - I want a big boat!!!" Must be the testosterone thing; after all Glenn had a 45 foot boat and I wanted mine to be bigger than his!

But as always, Jan talked more sense into me and we decided to seriously look at buying this boat! We arranged to take the boat for a sea-trial, have a survey done and if all went well we were prepared to buy this "cute little boat". Everything went well, there were no serious issues of concern and we made a deal to buy "Kozad".

So, after 33 years of dreaming, wanting and thinking of boating, and years of looking for the right boat, we finally did it; we bought our boat!

Only thing this was a year too early!

For you see, our goal was to have purchased our boat for the spring of 2008. After all, everyone told us it would take us three years or so to find the right boat! Ha!!! When the right boat comes along, the timing goes out the window - or the port hole!

We purchased Kozad a year earlier than planned; this was a good thing because now we needed the time and money to upgrade, change and add expensive items; you know so the boat would be perfect for us.

The quest was over and now the fun starts!

MV Kozad Description & Photogaphs: Along with W30 Voyager Line Drawings

Line Drawings of Willard 30 Voyager

The following three line drawings depict the layout and configuration of Kozad. These drawings were originally provided to the Willard Boat Owners Group by Richard Miller who is the owner of Seagull a sister ship to Kozad. I have modified the drawings to depict what Kozad looks like...

Starboard View

Port View

Interior Configuration and Deck Plan Views

Willard 30 Voyager Original Drawing

Description of Kozad

Kozad has a 30 foot overall length, a 10 foot 6 inch beam, a draft of 3 feet 6 inches and weights in at just over 15,000 lbs. She likes to cruise at 2,100 rpm achieving 6.5 knots while burning less than 1 U.S. gallon per hour. Kozad has a range of approx. 650 miles with a 25% reserve of fuel which in theory could provide for another 200 miles if required.

The boat has a very large interior space due in part to the wide body salon design; the owners stateroom is forward and down two steps from the raised pilot house. The forward section of Kozad includes a large V-berth with molded storage bins under, 2 hanging lockers and a bureau with drawers; we have placed a small microwave and a toaster on the top of the hanging locker. The head is to starboard and has a sink, electric toilet, a shower (wet head style) with a shower sump pump. Four opening stainless steel port lights and one overhead hatch provide lots of light and ventilation.

The galley is on the port side of the pilothouse and features a propane stove with oven, stainless steel sinks with hot and cold pressure water, refrigerated icebox (under the helmsman seat) and lots of cutlery, dish, pan and pantry storage.

The helm area is to starboard and includes large bench seat as well as custom helmsman seat, full engine instrumentation, navigation aids and electrical panels. Outboard of the helm is a sliding door giving good visibility, air and access to the forward deck.

Aft is the salon area with a large "L" shaped settee and table to port. The settee has considerable storage capacity under. To starboard are storage cabinets and drawers with an "L" shaped counter top. On the aft bulkhead are a Dickinson stainless steel diesel bulkhead heater and the door to the aft cockpit.

The aft cockpit has built-in seats with storage lockers under in a "U" shape at the transom; the new Freeman hatch provides access to an incredibly large lazarette located under the cockpit.
Kozad has remarkable accommodation and comfort for a small cruising trawler and we are continually amazed at how much storage space is on board.

The deck has non-slip surfaces, a mast and boom to lift a dinghy or assist in a man overboard situation. We have added a set of teak rails to the top deck to assist in tying down our prawn and crab traps, the fake smoke stack holds extra gas for the dinghy as well as propane and additional ropes, lines and the shore power cords. Two coolers have been added to the fore and port deck; these are secured to the boat and they can double as deck storage if needed.

The cockpit is a very nice place to sit and enjoy the ride, a quiet anchorage or as a comfortable fishing platform. We have added a huge Freeman hatch to the cockpit sole; Jan calls it a submarine hatch! This provided us access to the lazarette - the space under the cockpit which was only accessible by a small opening from inside the boat. The result is a great benefit and has significantly increased storage capacity; we carry cleaning supplies, fenders, our floats and lines for the prawn/crab traps, spare anchor and rode, an extra 5 gallons of diesel fuel, the dinghy cover, boots, hoses, lines, an emergency rudder and a whole lot more....

Kozad has definitely benefited from the 2000 to 2003 rebuild/refit and the continued update work done in 2006, 2007 and now in 2008! The results have provided Jan and I with virtually a like new traditional styled trawler cruiser. The classic Garden looks and a deceiving amount of live aboard space provide for a snug, comfortable, safe and economical boat which is truly a fine coastal cruising boat which is ideally set up for a couple to handle.

Thank you for taking a look at Kozad and our life on board!

We have dreamt of boating for over thirty years; now we get to live our dreams!

Photographs of Kozad

The following are photos of Kozad showing some of the upgrades, level of workmanship and layout of the boat.

Helm Station With New Single Lever Controls

View of Galley from Salon

Newly Installed St. Croix Removeable Davits

Another view of Davits, Walker Bay Genesis 270FTD Dinghy & 8hp 2 stroke Yamaha
with Crab and Prawn Traps on Deck

Newly Installed Lewmar Pro Series 1000 Windlass c/w 250' 5/16" Chain & 150' 5/8" Rode with 33lb ROCNA Anchor

View of Raised Pilot House from Salon; cold plate Fridge & Freezer under PH seat

New Head with Electric Toilet

V-Berth with Storage Beneath

Rebuilt Perkins with
Polyflex urethane engine mounts and shaft coupling

Galley from Helm Station

Salon with Dickinson Diesel Bulkhead Heater

Newly Installed Freeman Cockpit Hatch

Allows access to huge Lazarette

View of Salon from Pilot House

View of Galley from Salon

View of Salon from Galley

New Galley

Survey Time

First Viewing at Royal Victoria Yacht Club

Happy New Owners