After a month of searching, driving most weekends to look at boats, we have found our new boat!

Prior to finding our boat, here’s what we’ve looked at:

• CS36 Traditional – I really liked this boat. Solid with beefy gear, but the layout inside was too small for our family and didn’t have a separate cabin for the kids.
• CS36 Merlin – Layout of this boat was perfect, but at the price range we were looking at the condition of the boat was terrible. We would have ended up spending most of the summer and a lot of money to fix everything up. After seeing this boat, we realized we needed to up our budget by $20k.
• Beneteau 38s5 – A beautiful and fast boat but didn’t come with any extras, we would need to buy a dinghy and a bimini right away. It also had a strange setup with two heads, seemed excessive for this size of boat.
• Catalina 36 – Found a beautiful boat in New York that was well loved and had a great layout. A nice wide cabin with a separate table and a chart table on the right with comfy chairs. But

Canadian Sailcraft CS34

Then we found our boat, a beautiful CS34 sailboat, we’ve seen it advertised before but until we bumped up our budget it was out of our price range.

The CS 34 was perfect, a bit smaller, which is what Lori wanted. And it met all of our requirements:

• Swim deck
• Separate cabin for the kids
• Bimini/dodger
• Well cared for
• Dinghy

The owners were trying to get the sailboat ready for sale but the weather was not cooperating. The sailboat sounded perfect but we couldn’t find a date/time where we could see the boat and we were getting worried because our upcoming Vancouver trip would mean that others would get a chance to see the boat before us. I finally found a moment to make the drive Toronto and we are super glad we did!

Here’s the specs:

• Length Overall: 33 ft. 6 in.
• Beam: 11 ft. 3 in.
• Waterline Length: 27 ft. 8 in.
• Mast Bridge Clearance: 43 ft. 0 in.
• Displacement: 10,500 lbs.
• Shoal draft keel (lead): 4 ft. 6 in. (approx. 5 ft. in fresh water)

The boat was purchased new by the owners back in 1990 from the Toronto Boat Show and has stayed in fresh water ever since.  The boat is in immaculate shape with a lot of upgrades that were all expertly installed. From the details in our discussions and e-mails we could tell the owner was an Engineer, and we confirmed it.

A few highlights

A swim deck! And panel in the back contains a shower head with cold and hot water! Also the davits have been reinforced with additional fiberglass and an aluminum plate to ensure they are not going anywhere.

Electrical panel has been upgraded and new monitor for water level and VHF radio with an additional mic/speaker in the cockpit. And there’s a Loran, will need to find something else to fill that spot on the panel.

Electronics have been updated and compass has been replaced.

Lot’s of gear on deck for all types of sails, including a spinaker. It probably take us a few years before we will feel comfortable enough to take advantage of this.

And has full bimini with a strong stainless steel frame and additional grab handles.

Next step is survey, but not expecting any issues. And then we will need to figure out how to get all of the extra gear home and sail Dionysus back to her new home at Cobourg harbour. We can’t wait!