About Us and Our Boat
s/v Infinite Grace is a 1996 Ta Shing Taswell 43. She is a Bill Dixon center cockpit design with 2 cabins and 2 heads. The forward cabin is a pullman to port with a vanity and hanging locker to starboard. The head is forward of the cabin and aft of the anchor chain locker and sail locker. Aft of the pullman is the saloon, nav station, and galley. The owner's stateroom and head are aft of the saloon.
Jeff grew up sailing with his dad and brothers on Lake Michigan. He began sailing at the ripe old age of 8 and his love of water and wind developed along those shores. As a teenager he taught sailing and later developed a sailing program for the Chicago Parks District. He also developed a sailing program geared towards teaching disabled people how to sail and race sailboats. In addition to dinghy sailing, he learned how to windsurf. Jeff's dad owned several small boats including a Catalina 22, Tartan 27, and a Pearson Coaster 30 and it was on special summer trips that Jeff's dream of long-distance voyaging began to form.
Michelle grew up as a powerboat girl and enjoyed water skiing on lakes in Indiana and cruising on the intracoastal waterway in Florida with her parents. Michelle remembers feeling the call of the ocean even as a little girl on trips to Myrtle Beach and Sanibel Island. She spent a lot of time at the beach as a teenager in south Florida.
One night in 2012, Jeff took Michelle for a sail on the Columbia River on a friend's boat and the hook was set! That very night we started searching for a sailboat. As luck would have it, there was a 1983 Catalina 25 for sale in the Hood River Marina. After a test sail with her owner, we became the proud new owners of s/v Laughing Girl. We'll never forget our first night aboard that great little boat! It was at that time that we began to dream and dream big.
Fast forward a couple of years to 2014 when we began looking in earnest for a bigger, ocean-going boat. We started making lists of features that were a "must-have" as well as those that were a "nice-to-have" and created a short list of boats that we thought would be nice for sailing the world. We started seeing listings in the summer of 2014 for a boat named Athena but she was on the east coast and we were trying to find a boat on the west coast. We enlisted the help of a broker and, after looking at several boats on the west coast, he suggested that Athena might be a good choice for us.
In early 2015, we decided to fly to Herrington Harbor marina in Maryland to see Athena in person. We fell in love in spite of the fact that it was February and we were freezing as we inspected every nook and cranny of her! We scheduled a survey and sea trial (it just happened to be snowing the day we decided to do all of that!) and afterwards the deal was sealed. We flew home, started our 5-year plan on a napkin on the plane, and got to work trying to make the dream a reality.
We renamed her s/v Infinite Grace and shipped her across the country on a truck. After some work at the boatyard in Portland, we sailed her up the river to her new home in Hood River. We spent the next 5 years working our plan and enjoying sailing our new boat. We spent a lot of time learning how to handle a boat that was nearly twice the size of our Catalina but every time we sailed, we learned. We did many overnights with her while sailing up and down the Columbia River.
In 2017, we did our first big trip up to Vancouver Island and the San Juan Islands. This was a major step for us as it included crossing the Columbia River bar (also known as the "graveyard of the Pacific"...quite intimidating) and ocean sailing up the coast to the Strait of Juan de Fuca where there is a tremendous amount of shipping traffic. The trip went splendidly and, more importantly, we gained skills and confidence. We set our sights on a 2020 departure.
Alas, 2020 came and we found ourselves in the midst of a pandemic with borders closed. We decided to delay our plans for a year and put some more money in the cruising kitty. We did, however, make another trip to the San Juan Islands.
With our course set and plans for a major refit to be completed in summer of 2021 in Port Townsend, we are ready to begin the adventure.
Welcome to Sailing Through Life With Infinite Grace!
