Whats Up Doc History

Built in 1991in New Zealand. One of 5  Crowther150's built Maska and Deguelo (Crowther's own boat) are two others. I am told she won her class in 1992 in the Hobart Sydney race with a 24 knot average and 28 knot peak. Owned by a nephrologist in New caledonia until 1995 when Keith McKenzie bought her 'sold' his trucking bussiness in Vancouver and went cruising in the south Pacific. I met her and Keith in 1999 in Musket Cove Mololailai Fiji. In 2000 Keith lost the 73' mast 600 miles NW of Hawaii solo sailing to Vancouver ( a squal hit while napping with the Main fully up).

I helped Keith form a company, Bluewater Catamaran Expeditions, patterned after the successful Mahina Tiarri http://www.mahina.com/ but oriented to catamarans. Keith built a 700# carbon fiber 63' rotating winged mast designed by Bret Crowther. He did this in a studio in Vancouver and shipped it to Hawaii. We had a sucessful start after $30K of advertising and 6 boat shows. Then 9/11 hit and no one wanted to go to Central american countires. Because of the Jones act we could not do trips in the US.  So the bussiness failed by the time we got to the Bahamas just befor ewe finally got good coverage with an article in SAIL magazine, Cat in the Canal. June 2004 I think. Keith had two or three other articles in Multihulls before 2001. So I  became the owner of Whats Up Doc in 2004. Keith and I brought her to Maine (with three other crew) in May.

Since then I have raced in 6 local races doing well in each but can't win on corrected times. I am always in the top three on line honors excpt one race. In multi hull races most tris beat me, especially Famu Sami.  Cruises to Nova Scotia twice and Isle of Sholes and Portland three times. Lots of weekend sails in Penobscot bay. I am moored behind hospital island in Castine. She has had $15-60k of work each year. The $60k was in 2006-7 for the May 2006 dismasting damage.

In 2006 I lost the mast 25 miles off Portland, Maine. This was due to  improper rigging by the boat yard in Bangor. They did not set the set screw on the port turnbuckle. Tyler and I were sailing all night on a starboard tack and the port shroud shook loose behind the main. I had about 5 minutes on a starboard tack trying to reattach the port shroud. We headed up too far and the mast went over to starboard. We should have stayed on a starboard tack and not been on the VHF so much. Then we should have  taken the two spinacer hallyards and use them as the port stay.  A fishing boat, Michael, was near by and halled the mast onto the deck. Seatow towed us into Portland. Greene Marine multihull yard repaired her very well. The Bangor yard paid for half of the repair because the insurance lawyer settled with them against my wishes.
In 2007 She stayed out of the water. In 2008 I planned to sail around New England ( NYC up the Hudson through lake champlain and down te St lawrence. Plans changed when the port drive shaft attached to the electric motor broke. I had left the motor set up in it's place. The water in the bilge for 2 years repeatedly evaporated and condensed, rusting out the motor now I remove each motor each winter. and work to keep the bilges dry. By the time this was fixed the trip was ruined as I did not have time to complete it. In 2009 I left her in the yard and launched in 2010. withthe plan to sail over the 10-11 witer to teh Carrbean. That was set aside when I got caught in a gail that was unpredicted. 8-10 knots of wind in clear skies turned into 45-50K wind with clear skies. The forecast was 8-10k 3 hours before the wind picked up. IN three hours it went to 45K Hurricaine Thomas sucked the wind out of the high we were in. I made a fe wmistake. The screecher drum was left on the end of the bow sprit ( I was hypothermic and out of it  for a few hours and others did not know)  This broke the bow sprit and it dragged in the water.. A hatch handle was broken by a crew member and the hatched leaked right over the electric panel burning out eh hsoue bank charger, vhf, radar,. WE thought we had lost the stbd motor bu tthat was just a disconnected wire in the cockpit.

In 2011 we had a successful season except that the dragging of the bow sprit was found to have cracked both through hulls at the support cable attachments. So we could not use the sceecher for our sail to Nova Scotia. The screecher woud not come down and we needed to have athe halyard cut at the top of the mast to get her down. Should be fine now. UB twe stil covered 423 miles in 60 hours.  Nantucket to Mahone bay.