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In a Cloud of Sails

Book Opacic

In a Cloud of Sails – Monte Cristo / Endeavour II – Canada’s Forgotten Lady of the Sea (Photo from the George Opacic collection.)

by George Opacic 2018

Qualicum Beach publisher and author George Opacic has collaborated with Ron M. Craig to capture a nautical tale that began in British Columbia and ended in tragedy in New Zealand. Built in Vancouver the Monte Cristo as a three–masted bark that travelled, in 1970, across the Pacific to Tahiti, Australia and New Zealand. A project initiated by dreamers it endured through every imaginable difficulty and obstacle, all of which were overcome by a resilient young crew. Like most similar projects it was both hair–brained and exciting and colourful.

Opacic captures the details of a great nautical yarn that might otherwise have been lost to history. He also has illustrated the story with dozens of images – some in colour – that bring the story to life. From Marlon Brando, to Captain Cook, to Queen Elizabeth to Pierre Trudeau there is a bewildering and unlikely web of connections to this story that frankly you couldn’t make up!

The book is available directly from the Rutherford Press.


To quote from this article please cite:

MacFarlane, John (2019) In A Cloud of Sails. Nauticapedia.ca 2019. http://nauticapedia.ca/Gallery/Book_Opacic.php

Nauticapedia

Site News: December 21, 2024

The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 94,824 vessel histories (with 16,274 images and 13,929 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters).

Vessel records are currently being reviewed and updated with more than 45,000 processed so far this year (2024).

The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,599 entries (with 3996 images).

Thanks to Ray Warren who is beginning a long process of filling gaps in the photo record of vessel histories in the database. Ray has been documenting the ships of Vancouver Harbour for more than 60 years.

Thanks to contributor Mike Rydqvist McCammon for the hundreds of photos he has contributed to illustrate British Columbia’s floating heritage.

My very special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.

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