Why own a home when you can sail and travel?

Julie Thorndycraft

Current Boat: S/V Gaviidae, 41-foot Gozzard

Home Port: Aboard S/V Gaviidae

Joined GLCC: 2014

Joined GLCC Board: 2020

Title: Director, Logbook Editor

Port Captain: Old Dave’s Harbour (S-30) and Baie Fine-Okeechobee Lodge, Ont. (NC-83.1)

• Lifeline: What was your occupation?

Julie Thorndycraft: I spent 30+ years working in Information Technology with a focus on service, support, and project management. Later in my career, I transitioned from hands-on support into management as the director of Technical Services with a team of 50 scattered all over the country. My comfort with technology (and large databases) has helped me in my role as Harbor Reports Editor, along with being on the website committee.

• How did you get into boating? Is there a “dream boat” that you see sometime in your future?

When I was around 4, my father built a small 8-foot pram. That was my introduction to boating and sailing. When he retired from the Canadian Air Force, we moved to northern Minnesota and from 4th grade on, we lived on a lake with numerous boat toys.

I didn’t really care for sailing at that time, but if I wanted to go waterskiing, I had to go sailing with my dad. By that point, we had an O’Day Daysailer named Albatross. That boat officially became our boat when we broke the mast on one of my college weekend trips to the lake.

Daniel and I have owned a Capri 17’, Galatea; a Rhodes 22 trailerable sailboat, Blue Loon; a Gozzard 37 Gaviidae; and a Gozzard 41, also Gaviidae. The latter was and is our “dream boat.”

• You are Port Captain for Old Dave’s Harbour and Baie Fine-Okeechobee Lodge, Ont. What drew you to those 2 harbors?

We became quite intimate with Old Dave’s Harbour (Canadian shore, Lake Superior) after putting our Gozzard 37 on the rocks at the entrance.

At the time, I was on the bow watching for rocks and Dan was at the helm. Unfortunately, he missed a critical hand signal from me and onto the rocks we went. The waves immediately turned us sideways, and we got wedged between two rocks with deep water off the bow and off the stern.

It took us two hours to get free, during which time we realized that we were so remote we had no VHF signal and our only means of communication was to use our Garmin InReach. An approaching storm caused enough wave action and a bit of a seiche to lift the boat a bit and we were able to get off and get into the anchorage area.

The same storm kept us pinned into Old Dave’s for several days, giving us plenty of time to explore. Realizing the risk of missing a hand signal at a critical point led us to buy headsets aka marriage savers! Everyone is entitled to their opinion but when cruising uncharted, rocky entrances, headsets are essential. They have also helped me improve my docking skills as I can ask Dan for details of what he’s doing when he’s at the helm and it’s helped him with docklines when we reverse roles.

As for Okeechobee, we were their first “outside” guests when they decided to allow visitors. We were also the first sailboat to visit in years! We were joined by the “other” Gaviidae and spent a lovely couple of nights there. There was no Harbor Report for the location, and it seemed like a good idea to create one. And why not be a Port Captain for more than one location?

• What aspect of boating do you find most interesting or challenging?

My dad was a navigator and had me reading maps by the age of 4. It’s in my blood and why I do all the route planning/navigation on Gaviidae. When we are wiggling into a questionable area, Dan is now the bow lookout (his eyesight is better than mine) and I’m at the helm since I’ve spent the most time analyzing the route and potential problem areas.

Last summer’s cruise out the St. Lawrence was a mental challenge regarding navigation – so many factors to consider with tides, currents, wind, etc. I must admit that I enjoyed it, and we are considering the option of heading back to the Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence.

• What attracted you to join GLCC in 2014?

The sailing community in Minneapolis/St. Paul is very well connected and very sociable. As soon as we purchased the Gozzard 37, various sailing friends reached out to us and encouraged us to join the GLCC. These friends knew we wanted to cruise, and I mean “really cruise”, and they knew the Harbor Reports would be very useful to us. We are grateful to our GLCC friends, who we consider our mentors.

• You and Dan are GLCC Logbook Editors. What drew you to that?

Past-Commodore Rich Barzyk asked us if we would be interested when Lou Bruska retired from the position. Since we were already sailing to new places every summer and had the Admiral Bayfield award set as a personal goal – it seemed like a perfect fit. Plus, we were already writing about many of the locations we visited for our own website/blog

– www.gaviidaesails.com. It also helped that Dan’s career was as a writer/editor and my technology background helped with understanding the website.

• Describe your macro cruising objectives and how those led to a Founders Award in 2016 and the Bayfield Award in 2022.

I had created the GaviidaeSails.com website as part of a WordPress class project that I was taking in 2015. I showed it to Dan as a sneak preview, and he sent the link to a bunch of friends – an unplanned launch of the site.

Since the site was suddenly “live,” we blogged about our 2015 sailing season that included cruising to the GLCC Rendezvous in Rogers City with then-Commodore Niels Jensen and his wife, Vicki. Niels convinced us to submit our cruising blog for the Founders Award – all 115 pages! Needless to say, it was heavily edited to reduce the length.

As for the Bayfield Award, Niels was instrumental in this as well. He encouraged us to do daily logs just in case we wanted to go after the Bayfield. The Gozzard 41 we purchased in 2017 was in Rhode Island. And since we hadn’t completed our Great Lakes tour, we needed to move the boat to freshwater so we could continue cruising each of the Great Lakes.

We did the entirety of the Erie Canal and crossed Lake Erie from east to west during 2017. We generally picked one lake to explore during a season, although COVID-19 kept us in the North Channel for two years.

James Acheson was also instrumental in our quest for the Bayfield as he approved our float plan for the Erie Canal, Lake Erie, and Lake Michigan before the start of each season.

• What have been the 3 biggest benefits from your GLCC membership?

First, the Harbor Reports. I would use these to create our float plan during the winter months. We also used them when weather mandated a change in plans such as an unexpected stop at CPR Slip when the waves on Lake Superior were pushing 6-8 feet. I really missed the benefit of the Harbor Reports last summer as we cruised out the St. Lawrence.

Second – friendships! We’ve met so many people through the GLCC, it just seems like family.

Third – being able to reach out to Port Captains for suggestions or advice. I’m not sure how often other members call a Port Captain, but we did many times along our journey. There’s nothing better than local knowledge.

• Any other personal insights?

Over the years, I’m seeing more and more women who are comfortable with all aspects of boating and who are 100% involved in the decisions and running of their boat. It’s time we kick the Admiral status to the curb and acknowledge the team/co-captain status of both parties.

• Best Rendezvous/rally experience?

Our first Rendezvous was at Rogers City. We were relatively new to cruising on a cutter rig sailboat at that time and were still learning how and when to fly the forward sails. We figured we would just mimic everything that Freelance was doing. The Jensens’ sailboat had mechanical issues on the first day and had to be left in Houghton/Hancock.

Since we expected to learn from them, we forced them to join us on our boat and Gaviidae became the Commodore’s Boat. During our time with Niels and Vicki aboard, we learned how to hip-tow another boat, how to arrive in a marina and show everyone how not to dock (bow lines should never be tossed first), how to “dress” a boat, and have 14 people onboard for dinner – all of whom were either members, or honorary members of the MN Mafia.

• How do you and Dan keep yourself busy in the winter?

Dan and I have an ‘unconventional’ lifestyle. We spend our summers cruising/living on our sailboat, but we don’t have a seasonal marina. We are always cruising. We also don’t have a winter home as we sold our Minneapolis condo in 2015.

Originally, we thought we would rent during the winter months, but I was introduced to pet-sitting by a fellow sailor. That was the start of a lovely relationship as Dan and I both love animals and missed having a dog. We now pet- and house-sit during the winter. We pick where we want to go geographically, and then find pet-sits using a service. We don’t get paid, but we get to enjoy exploring a new location, some wonderful critters, and meet some lovely people.

So far, we’ve done house-sits all over the U.S., Ontario, and in southern France. Since no one was traveling in 2020 due to COVID-19, we purchased a small RV and now travel to house-sits in the RV. When we’re in an area that we want to explore further, we simply block out our house-sitting calendar and take a “vacation.”