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With more than 100 boats built, the American Tug family is growing. Each spring, the company sponsors a weekend of cruising seminars that attract owners – some of whom haven’t taken delivery yet – because of the strong focus on cruising the Inside Passage through British Columbia and on to Alaska. Seminar planners assume tug owners know how to navigate, anchor and operate and their boats. So the sessions emphasize places to see and visit, including anchorages and congenial communities, and include tips on maintenance, the changing world of boat electronics, danger spots, places to avoid, border crossing issues and hints on reading weather conditions.
I was invited to join the group in Everett, Washington recently to describe – surprise! – the Grand Banks-sponsored 50th anniversary cruise to Southeast Alaska in May and June, 2006. My wife, Polly, and I made the trip in our 42 GB Europa to represent PassageMaker Magazine and to have a good time on our third trip to Alaska. Grand Banks yachts are white; American Tug, to my knowledge, never has built a white boat. So there was some kidding about “white boats.”
What I had to say kept the tug families occupied during lunch.
The real value was all mine. Every time I get together with groups of boat owners I learn something. Poring through a guide book developed by Dave Scott and his wife, Eddylee, owners of a 41 AT, I found the names of dozens of places our boat never has visited. Most of the tips came from American Tug owners, who made careful log book entries about places they liked the best. They were good reporters, offering all the facts. One boater, writing about Elfin Cove, definitely an enjoyable but quaint boardwalk community in a remote area far west of Juneau, wrote: “SW wind & ebb = bad.”
Three tug owners offered tips on making a passage through Rocky Pass in Alaska, a place known for current, shallow water, a winding channel and shoals. They gave me courage to give it a try someday.
If someone in the owners’ group had a question, usually a boater sitting nearby had the answer. The Scotts, who have cruised the Inside Passage for decades, and who owned a 42 “white boat” before becoming affiliated with American Tug, also shared a wealth of information and anecdotes.
Hearing the names of familiar places made me homesick. I wish it were time to go.
Before I finished my presentation, I was forced to give up the names of five favorite places. I mentioned Reid Harbor on Stuart Island in the San Juans (off season only); Saltspring Island and Ganges, its waterfront community, in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, and several places in the Broughton Archipelago, including Claydon Bay and Turnbull Cove. And then I blundered. I mentioned a bay running deep into the mountains off Icy Strait, west of Glacier Bay in Alaska. No one had ever heard the name and several came to me later with cruising guides and pencils, looking for an X to mark the spot. I even told them where to drop shrimp and crab traps. The secret is in the hands of a few dozen AT boaters, but I’m not going to make the leak worse by giving away the name again.
While American Tug provides general support, hosts a BBQ dinner and makes the arrangements, the participants cover the cost of the conference center and meals. This year it was $275 per couple. The willingness of boating couples to share those costs, plus take care of their own transportation and lodging needs, indicates the popularity of - an the need for - these kind of events.
This kind of program makes good boaters even better. More builders should do the same.