'Spray Venture' was built in British Columbia, Canada for the current owners who have lived aboard since her launch in 1986 and this is a brief history of their travels.
"We left Canada in 1987 and sailed down the West Coast of USA to Mexico, here we cruised Mexico for two years, spending the hurricane season in the northern end of the Sea of Cortez and cruised in the winters as far South as Acapulco.
In March of 1990 we set off across the South Pacific visiting the Marquesa Islands, Tuamotos, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga. We left Tonga to sail to New Zealand in late October 1990 where we spent the cyclone season and stayed six months in that wonderful country.
We left New Zealand to sail to Fiji in May 1991 stopping off for a few weeks in Minerva Reef en route. After a few weeks in Fiji we sailed to New Caledonia where we stayed for a few weeks and then spent the cyclone season in Australia entering at Townsville and sailing South to Brisbane. After a pleasant six months in Australia we set sail for New Caledonia where we spent the winter as we had so enjoyed our time there on the way through.
We left New Caledonia for New Zealand in November 1992 where we spent another very pleasant six months. In March 1993 we set off for Tahiti sailing fairly far south to get into the Westerlies, where we found some very rough weather down there and spent some time running before the wind in the wrong direction!! From Tahiti it was off to Hawaii via Rangiroa, an atoll in the Tuamoto group. After a few weeks in Hawaii we sailed to Vancouver Island which is where we had started from six years previously.
We remained in Canada sailing up to Alaska and to remote areas of British Columbia in the summers while we worked in the winters.
In the year 2000 we set off again down the west coast of America and Mexico and on to Central America, where we spent another year in Mexico and six months in Panama. After passing through the Panama Canal we spent a good few months in the marvellous San Blas Islands before heading to Cartagena in Columbia. We hauled the boat there in 2003 and had the topsides sandblasted and painted.
Our next trip was back to USA via Honduras, Belize, and Mexico arriving at Key West in June, where we spent the next few months sailing up the East Coast of USA until we reached Nova Scotia, Canada in September. Here we experienced our first (and only) hurricane in Halifax harbour at anchor. It was a very interesting night in which we only suffered minor scratches from moored boats heading downwind and bumping down our topsides.
The next three years were spent cruising up and down the East Coast of USA and Canada following the seasons. In 2006 we left Beaufort, North Carolina for Bermuda and after a few weeks there we sailed to the Azores for the usual few weeks, then off to Ireland. We arrived in the UK at Falmouth and have been cruising England, France, Scotland and Ireland since and are now based on the River Crouch in Essex, UK.
The boat is beautifully insulated which makes it a great livaboard in both hot or cold climates."
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