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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

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Site News: April 19, 2024

The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 92,229 vessel histories (with 15,629 images and 13,195 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,616 entries (with 4,013 images).

In 2023 the Nauticapedia celebrated the 50th Anniversary of it’s original inception in 1973 (initially it was on 3" x 5" file cards). It has developed, expanded, digitized and enlarged in those ensuing years to what it is now online. If it was printed out it would fill more than 300,000 pages!

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