PITTMAN INNOVATION AWARDS
though, a whale-watching boat came zooming toward us and told us to take it slow as there were humpbacks in the area. Sure enough, no sooner had they sped off than an enormous humpback longer than our boat surfaced within 20ft of us. It cruised slowly past, looking us over and then dove back down. Not realizing we’d all been holding our breath, we suddenly exhaled together with a whoosh of relief and delight.
North of Desolation Sound, the coast becomes a labyrinth of inlets and narrow channels, with steep snow-capped mountains to either side and forests right down to the tide line. Endless winding passages and mountains in all directions make it easy to lose your bearings, so we were thankful for our chart plotter. As if that were not already enough, the narrow inlets are also home to excessively large tides, with turbulent currents that rip through at frightening speeds during peak flow. Something else to watch out for are the ghost logs that weigh several tons and lie unseen below the surface, waiting to tear a hole in your hull. To lengthen our odds, we shot each gap during slack tide.
Unfortunately, as we approached the entrance to the Yuculta Rapids, the most notorious tidal passage in the area, we discovered that slack tide is a relative term, as we were greeted by multiple current lines, turbulent rapids and whirlpools that could swallow a small vessel whole. While approaching the first current line I reflected on how easy the journey had been thus far. Suddenly, as we crossed into the turbulent waters, the boat made an abrupt lurch to port, drawing a collective “whoa” from the crew. Steady hands and nerves, though, saw Harry safely steer us through the rapids to the other side.
By this stage of the trip, we had made a serious dent in our supplies, and it was unanimously decided to pay a visit to the floating pub and store in Port Harvey. However, as we were pulling up there, we couldn’t help but notice there wasn’t much activity. And as we were tying up to the jetty, a bearded captain informed us that we were two years too late—the pub had been maliciously sunk. Just how a pub sinks, I’m not quite sure, but let that be a lesson not to pin your hopes and dreams on a cruising guide printed in 2013.
Moving on, we anchored in between Harbledown Island and Mound Island, near the tiny First Nations village of New Vancouver and the old village site of Mamalilacula—an area that, like all the Broughton Archipelago has an ancient feeling to it. Numerous shell middens and ash layers are visible in the area, and the broken shell beach above our campsite was pure white from the thousands of meals of shellfish eaten at this spot. The area hums with 10,000 years of history, now far more deserted than it ever was in the past.
That afternoon we also decided to build a beach sauna and went to work
Innovation comes in all shapes and sizes, and nowhere is this more evident than in the Pittman Innovation Awards Class of 2018. As has now been the case for a number of years, the latest in electronics is once again very much a part of the mix in everything from safety to racing. However, this year’s winners also include new takes on such basic products as the safety tether and the lowly canvas snap. Also exciting to see is the trickle-down effect in action in the form of North Sails’ new NORDAC product line: it
would be hard to find a better example of this phenomenon than the same cutting-edge technology that powered the Volvo Ocean Race fleet a short years ago now being made available to cruisers. Finally, kudos to Scanstrut for the new para sailing system it developed in conjunction with RS Sailing to get more handicapped skippers out on the water. Not only does this product more than do justice to the memory of SAIL’s long-time technical editor Freeman K. Pittman, who died of Lou Gerhig’s disease in 1996, it speaks to all that’s good about sailing in general.