Ronstan Orbit Winch™

Orbit Winches™ are lighter than any winch in their class and offer unmatched line grip and control with minimal rope wear. What else?

Ronstan’s patented QuickTrim™ self-tailing provides an entirely new user experience, allowing sailors to easily and safely ease line tension to make minor sail trim adjustments without removing the winch handle or taking the line out of the self-tailer. Respond and react instantly to minor course corrections or changes to wind pressure and direction and leave the competition in your wake.

Tip the Scales: Featuring fully machined aluminium drums, Orbit Winches™ are the lightest in their class.

Get a Grip: Distinctive drum profile with Power Ribs™ provides impressive grip and control without chewing through your running rigging.

QuickTrim™: A uniquely competitive edge for racing and a simple convenience when cruising, a standard feature on Orbit Winches™ 30QT and larger..

Available now in sizes 20ST, 30QT, and 40QT.

Appropriately enough, the new business was named Cove Yachts, based at Kurt’s Marina (now part of Maple Bay Marina) and was one of the pioneers of bare boat chartering in BC (Bosun’s Charters in Sidney was our only competitor) with a small fleet of Grampian 23s. As the business expanded, we built our own marina next door, which included a 100-ton marine railway, boat repairs, moorage, sailing school, yacht brokerage and eventually a dealership in Paceship Yachts.

Little did I know that a magazine which was launched the year I helped build my father’s house would play a vital role in our fledgling business four years later. Gerry Kidd was the editor of Pacific Yachting in those days and with his input and support we crafted an advertising campaign that really put Cove Yachts on the chart. The bareboat charter business grew to a fleet of 27 boats, power and sail, with a program that utilized privately owned vessels. And though the farthest dealership from the factory in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, Cove Yachts was awarded Top Canadian Dealer for the number of Paceships sold.

One day, a cheerful sailor with a crop of curly hair and a wide grin turned up at the marina in his Gulf Island 29 Tumbo and thrust a package into my hands. “This is the manuscript for my new book”, said Bill Wolferstan, “Could you get it to Pacific Yachting for me please? I’m in a bit of a hurry.” I didn’t know Bill then, but his book A Cruising Guide to the Gulf Islands, published by Pacific Yachting, became an icon and a valuable reference for West Coast boaters and Bill himself became the magazine’s cruising columnist.

Fast forward a few years and after the sale of Cove Yachts and a year restoring a Norwegian schooner on the Isle of Wight, Marg and I settled in the remote community of Oona River, Porcher Island, just south of BC’s border with Alaska. There we salmon fished in the summers, crabbed in the winters and undertook some boat building projects including the complete rebuild of our fishing vessel Distant Drummer. But with four small daughters we knew this isolated lifestyle wouldn’t last forever and when we got a call from Wally Eggert, chair of a sail training organization in Victoria, asking if we could revitalize their programs and restore Canada’s last original Grand Banks fishing schooner still sailing, the Robertson II, we knew it was time to move.

Once again, Pacific Yachting came to the rescue as we developed an advertising campaign for SALTS, initially the 10-day summer sail training trips and later the boat donation program. In less than two years, the newly restored Robbie was fully booked and it was time for another ship. In quick succession, the little brigantine Spirit of Chemainus was launched in the “Little Town That Did,” Chemainus, in 1985 and the topsail schooner, Pacific Swift at Expo ‘86 in Vancouver.

The latter was specifically designed for offshore sailing, and I was privileged to skipper her on her maiden voyage to Expo ‘88, in Brisbane, Australia,