Ealasaid
32 foot B class cruising sloop
Year: 1927
Designer: Tom Halliday
Builder: Ken McKenzie
Owner: James Pegg
Ealsasaid is a beautiful old wooden sailboat, built by her original owner, Ken McKenzie between 1927 and 1930. It was designed by Tom Halliday, a naval architect who also designed the more famous RCMP boat the St. Roch built in 1928 and which navigated the Northwest Passage between 1940 and 1944.
Ealasaid is built with yellow cedar planking over oak frames. Her original deck is canvas over cedar planking, although this has been covered with teak planking. Her original owner and builder, Ken Mckenzie, actively raced her in competition for 35 years and won many races including the Fraser Lightship race twice, the Ballenas Island Lightship race, and several English Bay regattas, and the coveted Lipton Cup in Cowichan Bay in 1952 (although I am having trouble confirming this one). Ken was continuously making modifications to make her to go faster including extending the stern several feet, adding lead to the keel to change her trim or increase the sail carrying capacity, and changing the original gaff rig to a Marconi rig. Another modification he did, probably at the end of her racing career was to increase the height of the coach roof in the center of the cabin to give standing headroom. She also may not have originally had an engine and a Mercedes diesel was also probably added at the end her racing career. This engine was replaced with the current two cylinder Volvo Diesel in about 1989.
She was first sold around 1971 and some time after that entered a long period of neglect until she was purchased in about 1989 by the first of a series of owners who have been attempting to bring her back to former glory. She is currently in Nanaimo, British Columbia, where James, her current owner, is working hard on getting her fixed up. Repairs so far have included sistering some ribs, getting a new mast, minor repairs to the engine, replacing one of the engine bearers, and repairs to the hatches and cabin sides. Spring 2003 the new mast was finally stepped and she went out sailing again on June 6th, 2003 for the first time in several years. Minor repairs and painting/varnishing continued through the summer with occasional day sailing.
Summer 2005 we took Ealasaid on a week long trip to the Victoria Classic Boat Festival where she got to hang out with other beautiful old wooden boats in the inner harbour for a few days. The trip went very well and we had one very good day of sailing from Victoria to Portland Island when the wind and current were with us all day. (updated Nov 6, 2005; small photos taken summer, 2003, large photo taken summer 2005)
