[Alan & Belinda]

We just returned from Nanaimo where we took our Intermediate Cruising standard aboard a C&C 41 for 5 days in the Gulf Islands. We went out with Rex Delay of Altitude cruising corp, the coastal division of Ghost Lake Sailing Academy. He is a CYA (Sail Canada) Instructor. Very laid back casual learning environment. We had some excitement when we had a furler halyard wrap and we couldn’t furl the foresail just as we were approaching Dodd Narrows for the slack tide but we worked as a team and dealt with it.
The Transport Canada rules are changing for training vessels and they are now going to be treated like a commercial vessel. I don’t know all the details but one of the biggest is they are now required to carry a life raft. This may affect some of the independent instructors due to the added expenses of operation.