by Colin Jackson
with thanks to Cooper Boating.
We manage boats for private owners, and I had just returned from Edmonton myself, where one of our owners had shown me his blue car – happened to be the same model and colour. Being that this blue car had an Alberta plate on it and it was parked within a few hundred feet from this fellow’s boat, I jumped to the conclusion that he must have driven out to spend some quality time with his boat - a 42 foot sailboat here at Granville Island.
That season and into the next, Bob and Susan took our power cruise and learn and then moved into our Cooper Cruising Club Cooper Cruising Club . They quickly gravitated towards the Westcoast Custom Yachts we featured in our lineup – built by our founder Forbes Cooper (who also had a blue car when he lived in Edmonton, but enough of that for the moment). The cruise and learn complimented Bob’s theoretical training with the Canadian Power Squadron and allowed him to focus on docking, anchoring and application of those well thought out passage plans that he worked on while landlocked in St. Albert. Bob and Susan soon had the disease – the one that nobody wants to cure. Boating fever had set in and there was little that could be done about it other than to dive in further. Sitting back home in his office, he realized that office time at home was now merely a bridge between boating trips.
By this time, the first Westcoast 46 had been launched for the fractional yacht program. Now some people enjoy trying different boats out in our Cruising Club, but Bob and Susan were now heading out continually on the Westcoast 46 model alone. So, I introduced the concept of them owning a quarter share of a Westcoast 46 themselves. Bob and Susan picked up the 3rd quarter of Westcoast Spirit here at Granville Island and have since been exploring the coast for over 56 days in 2008 alone and boating fever is clearly still a big part of their lives – with no cure, the simple treatment is their time aboard this fine yacht.
The story got a little more interesting when the fellow with the other blue car from Alberta approached me with a few challenges. Turned out his wife had put up with his sailing habit quite long enough now and he was also considering a different form of boat and a different form of ownership. Until this point, Dr. Don LeDrew of Leduc, Alberta had owned a couple of sailboats in the Cooper charter fleet. That program does effectively reduce ownership costs, but the boat is being shared with people who do not have an equal vested interest in the vessel. The thought of sharing the boat with others equally seemed a better fit and Dr. LeDrew was headed towards the fractional program as well.
Not only do these fine people have similar taste in cars, they now have the same boat in the same program.
Bob and Susan’s boat is fully subscribed but Dr. Ledrew’s boat is still looking for additional fractional owners. I suppose the plan might be to start looking around Alberta for blue cars – but even if your car isn’t blue or you are not from Alberta – check out Memories – the Westcoast 46 available with One 4 Yacht Fractions or the Cooper Cruising Club – you can always get a blue car and move to Alberta later!
