Scott and Jane Young wanted to travel farther by boat, but at first they couldn’t quite figure out how to make it work.
After selling their business in 2016, the longtime boaters considered covering serious miles. Inspired by a TV show about remarkable train journeys, including routes to Alaska, they began exploring the idea of chartering a yacht in the Pacific Northwest. At their home port in Fredericton, New Brunswick, they already owned a Downeast-style Wilbur 34 with an overnight cabin and enjoyed spending time aboard. Still, multi-month charters in the Pacific Northwest were costly, and they found few boats that accommodated the balance and mobility challenges Jane experiences with multiple sclerosis.
The solution was to commission a customized North Pacific 44 sedan—Hull No. 5—from North Pacific Yachts in British Columbia. They wanted true single-level living and specific accessibility features to make long-distance cruising practical and safe. The couple worked closely with the builder to adapt the design to Jane’s needs.
“A year before we got the boat, we were out in Washington and toured a similar model owned by someone else,” Jane recalls. “We walked through it step by step to decide where I’d like handholds or thicker coaming on the tables so I could run my hand along them. There are no thresholds going into the heads; it’s all level so you don’t have to step over anything.”
The Youngs also asked North Pacific Yachts owner Trevor Brice to replace the flybridge ladder with proper stairs and to add a wider door on the starboard stern so Scott can move a wheelchair aboard without lifting it over the bulwark. “There was never, ever a question of, ‘Do you really want that?’” Scott says.
Brice explains that customization is common at North Pacific Yachts. Since opening in 2004, the company has built roughly 165 boats ranging from 44 to 59 feet, averaging seven to ten new hulls per year. “We are flexible,” Brice says. “Almost all our options have come because people asked for something different. They ask for something, and we figure it out.”
Many North Pacific owners use their boats for extended cruising—running the U.S. East Coast, completing the Great Loop, or traveling from Washington state to Alaska. That was exactly the Youngs’ plan after they took delivery of Wolastoq in March 2021. The boat’s name is a native term meaning “beautiful river,” a fitting tribute to the waterways the couple loves. Wolastoq is powered by a single 250-hp Cummins diesel, whose efficient cruising range is about 7.3 to 7.4 knots at roughly 3.2 gallons per hour—economy and reliability that suited the Youngs well, especially during pandemic travel.
In summer 2021 they explored British Columbia near the shipyard. With border restrictions easing in 2022, they cruised up to Alaska and spent time in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, joined by friends aboard. They also returned to Fredericton to cruise the East Coast on their Wilbur.
This past summer they set off on an even longer voyage, shipping the North Pacific 44 from British Columbia to Southeast Florida. “We used it in Florida and the Bahamas, then came up the East Coast. We just got home in May,” Scott says. “This was without a doubt our biggest cruise. In 2015, we went down to New York, up the Hudson, out to Lake Ontario, turned around in Georgian Bay and went back. That was a good cruise that summer, but nothing like this. We were gone this time for four or five months before getting home.”
Scott loved how the coastline and scenery changed every few days—from Florida’s shallow flats to the marshy Carolina coast to the busy bays of the Chesapeake. He says their timing was ideal, reaching New York in the second week of May before peak summer crowds arrived. “We went out to Block Island, and the marina wasn’t even open. There was nobody there. It was a really different kind of cruising,” he says.
Weather was occasionally a challenge: spring temperatures swung from warm to unexpectedly cold. Still, the couple embraced the variety of landscapes and new sights. Jane was particularly struck by the scale of the naval vessels at Norfolk, where retrofitting work was underway. “You don’t realize how big they are until you see a fighter plane on the deck and it looks like a little Volkswagen,” she says.
Because Jane’s mobility limits shore excursions, much of their exploration happens from the tender. “We’re not going hiking,” Scott explains. “We put the tender down and go exploring—usually poking up a creek or getting close to nature. In Norfolk, that meant getting a close look at these huge steel ships.”
While the West Coast offers more dramatic, rugged scenery, the Youngs appreciate the East Coast for its social conveniences—marinas, restaurants and readily available services. Looking ahead, they hope next summer to cruise around Nova Scotia to Bras d’Or Lake and then on to Newfoundland. “It’s a long ways from Key West to Newfoundland. It’s a long coast,” Scott says. “We’ve done a lot of miles. And it’s all good.”
This article was originally published in the October 2023 issue.