Dan Godbout: Sailing the St. Lawrence to Baie Comeau

Dan and Theresa Godbout sailed their Beneteau 331 down the St-Lawrence to Baie Comeau and back to Kingston in June 2019. His talk will give you an overview and the highlights of this amazing 6 week trip. Dan has been a member of Nepean Sailing Club since September 2003, but started sailing much earlier! “My sailing endeavours started a long time ago at age 11. My father bought a Snark sunflower from the Eaton’s catalog (for the younger crowd, this is the precursor of Amazon when Sears and Eaton had the monopoly on mail order). He taught both my brother and I how to sail and let us use the boat on our own several afternoons a week on a small city lake in Baie Comeau, as long as we kept our life jackets on. We complied and both enjoyed sailing; we were hooked.” “I bought my first keelboat (Shark #138) in Summer 1985, sailing for 2 years from the Rockliffe Yacht Club. I sold the boat in 1987 and move to BC for work. I continued sailing dinghys (420s and Albacores) on Cultus Lake in Chilliwack and took a coastal cruising course and sailed a Bayfield 32 out of Vancouver. I moved back to this end of the country in 1990 and stayed away from sailing for several years (3 kids, one salary). I finally got back into sailing in 2003 when Doug Patterson convinced me to buy a Tanzer 22. I have sailed and raced “Sherrie” at NSC for 19 years. Although we were finally doing very good at racing “Sherrie”, I’m now a co-owner of a J22 “Jetstream” and am ready to get my ass kicked once again in the J22 fleet.” Theresa and Dan acquired a Sabre 28 for cruising in 2006 and upsized their “cruising cottage” to a Beneteau 331 in 2012. They moved the Beneteau to Kingston in 2016 and enjoyed sailing Lake Ontario and the Thousand Island for 4 years. They brought the boat back to NSC in 2020 since they couldn’t go anywhere because of COVID but are quite happy to “sail the Ottawa River once again and enjoy cruising with friends.” This presentation is part of the NSC Winter Speaker’s program, which promotes ongoing learning about all things nautical, as well as cruising and competitive sailing.