sv ALVEI
Keep in Touch
  • Home
  • About
    • The Cooperative
    • Purpose
    • The Captain
  • Life on Board
    • FAQ's
    • Sea Bag
    • Video
    • Itinerary
    • Alvei History >
      • The Founder
    • Historical logs from Captain Evan Logan >
      • 2017 Tarakohe, New Zealand
      • Tarakohe, New Zealand 2016
      • Nelson, New Zealand 2016
      • Vanuatu, September 2014
      • Vanuatu to Brisbane 2013
      • Nelson to Fiji 2013
      • Honor Fiji Journey 2012
      • Nelson to Fiji 2012
      • Lautoka to New Zealand, October 2011-January 2012
      • Lautoka to Port Villa September 2011
      • Fiji August 2011
      • Nelson May 2011
      • Brisbane to Nelson 2010
      • Suva to Brisbane October 2010
      • Suva, Fiji July 2010
      • May 2010 Nelson, NZ
      • January 2010, Nelson, NZ
      • December 2009 Port Vila, Vanuatu
      • October 2009 Vanuatu
      • September 2009 Port Vila, Vanuatu
      • July 2009 Tonga
      • April 2009 Nelson, NZ
      • June 2008 Fiji
      • April 2008 Nelson, NZ
      • January 2008 Nelson, NZ
      • November 2007 Russell, NZ
      • September 2007 Vanuatu
      • July 2007 Vanuatu
      • June 2007 Passage to Vanuatu from Fiji
      • May 2007 Suva, Fiji
      • October 2006 Vanuatu
      • September 2006 Vanuatu
      • June 2006 Suva to Port Vila
      • June 2006 Suva, Fiji
      • March 2006 Nelson, NZ
      • February 2006 Nelson, NZ
      • December 2005 A New Beginning
      • December 2005 Crossroads
      • Christmas 2005
      • January 2004 Nelson, NZ
      • October 2004 Nelson, NZ
      • September 2003 Tonga
      • July 2003 PagoPago
      • April 2003 New Zealand
      • September 2002 Fiji
      • February 2002 Nelson, NZ
      • July 2001 PagoPago
      • August 2000 Suva, Fiji
      • March 2000 Brisbane, Australia
      • October 1999 Port Villa, Vanuatu
      • August 1999 Lautoka, Fiji
      • April 1998 Nelson, NZ
      • December 1997 Nelson, New Zealand
      • July 1997 French Polynesia
      • October 1996 Golfito, Costa Rica
      • February 1996 Bequia, St. Vincent
  • Cost
  • Contact

From Typee to Alvei

From an article in Latitude '38, May 1995

Back in his formative years, Evan Logan was a voracious reader of the great novels of the sea Conrad, London, and particularly Melville. In the latter's book Typee, one passage helped form a life philosophy.

"Melville noted that to the Tahitian way of thinking, work and play should be the same thing," he recalls. "That worked for me!"

Through the various stints of fun/work as a fine artist, graphic artist and ship master, Logan who still calls Lockeford, California, home was never far from sailing. And we're talking big sailing. Square riggers and 'working' schooners such as Sophia, and Regina Maris were his preferred mode of travel. He skippered the latter vessel for several of her extended voyages in the mid '70s.

By the mid '80s, Logan was ready for a big schooner of his own. "I'd been sailing other people's versions for 12 years," he says. "And I thought I knew enough to avoid all their mistakes."

But what he ended up with must have seemed to some the biggest mistake possible. Not only was the vessel he bought not a schooner, it wasn't even a sailboat. It was a 92-foot steel cargo boat originally built as a herring drifter in 1920!

The detractors were soon silenced. Similar to the famous steam schooners of the West Coast (of which the Sausalito museum ship Wapama is the last one), Alvei was part of a transitional style of ships whose lineage traced the path from sail to steam. Like the steam schooners, the 'lugers' started out as sailing ships with small engines. As time went by, the engines grew larger and the sails smaller until the latter were used for little more than stabilizing the ride. Throughout the process, the ships retained the graceful, slender hulls of their sailing forebears. All the Scotland-built Alvei needed in the way of hull modifications was the addition of a 2-foot-deep, 15-ton ballast shoe run the length of the keel.

The project started out swimmingly. Logan and partner Bart Willems bought Alvei in Norway in the fall of 1986, and by the time they reached Gaia, Portugal, where the conversion/rebuild would take place, they had already bought the wood for the topmasts (in Norway) and the steel for the lower masts and yards (in Holland) for bargain basement prices. Logan, Willems a boilermaker by trade and the main welder on the project and a band of believers more or less just threw on the docklines in Portugal and got to work.

Like all boating projects, though, time and material estimates pretty much flew out the window after awhile. Logan figured the conversion would take two years. It has taken eight. As each obstacle was surmounted, it seemed like another two would present themselves. Some at least had humorous aspects. In November, 16 beautiful brand new white sails finally arrived from Hong Kong. Thing is, they ordered tanbark. "Oh, well, the bill ended up being less than estimated, so what the heck."

On January 16 1995, Alvei Norse for 'one who goes everywhere' sailed for the first time in her 75 years of life. The shakedown cruise to Vigo, Spain, ended up a baptism by fire, as the ship scudded before gale-force winds and 25-ft seas. But she made it in fine fettle, only to drop her anchor right into the hold of a sunken wreck! Extricating the hook necessitated several hours of scuba diving, the assistance of a local fishing boat, repair of the windlass (that broke trying to raise the fouled anchor) and a several day delay to the schedule. After all that, could anyone doubt Alvei was now a full-fledged sailing ship?

"I prefer to think of the ship more as a way of life than a charter boat," says Logan. Whatever crew is onboard gets to decide which island to visit and for how long.

"Five guys can actually sail the ship," he says, "if they're all meat bucket deck apes that know what they're doing. Most of the rest of the time, it will take a crew of 9 to 12." Long term, he sees Alvei's ideal crew comprising three different types of people, one third 'regular' crew, one third long term (5 or 6 months) shareholders and the final third, short-time charterers or just people aboard for daysails or island hopping.

It appears that Logan is one of those enterprising souls who's been able to pull off what most of us only dream about and turned an ugly duckling into a swan to boot!

Picture
Captain Evan Logan (right) discusses sailing basics with crew member, Merlin. 2010, Tasman Sea.
Proudly powered by Weebly