Destiny, 47' Gulfstar Sailmaster Sloop, 1979 - California

This boat was purchased in Alameda, California in 1995, where before that she was berthed at Redwood City, CA.  At one time, previous owners had changed her name from Pacific Wanderer to Destiny.  In her lifetime, this boat has cruised from Alaska to the South Pacific and many places in between.  For my wife and I, she is the perfect liveaboard cruiser.  Having experienced all forms of weather on our coastal hops, we really appreciate how well built these boats are.  She is hull number 16 of the sloop rig designs with a tall mast, and just recently she has been upgraded with a new full batten main & lazy jacks, 140 roller furling genoa, custom bottomsider cockpit cushions & new canvas.  We replaced the Onan generator with a new Northern Lights and had the Perkins 6-354 engine rebuilt due to overheating problems.  These were all long overdue upgrades and we finally have her how we've talked about fixing this old girl up!  When the boat was first bought, my husband had doubts of giving up a "sailboat" for a "motor sailor", but this boat really sails in both light and strong winds.  In 1997, Destiny sailed from San Francisco Bay up to the Puget Sound and berthed at Shilshole Marina and Bainbridge Island for a while.  After a year and a half, we sailed back down to the Bay Area for warmer winters.  We are looking forward to doing some cruising down South in a year or so. 

Believing in the true cruising spirit, but also doing it in comfort, Destiny has an Alpha Spectra duel station autopilot that can be operated from the nav station and full enclosed cockpit, which makes those especially cold nights just a little nicer.  The one thing that we haven't been able to find is a self-tailing system we can put on our Barient 28 winches.  We've looked everywhere, and they don't seem to make ones for this size.  The cost of new winches allows us to continue to build our muscles!

We also have a large Norcold refrigerator/freezer, which we replaced.  Much to the boatyard and our surprise, it required us to pull the mast so that the refrigerator could pass forward into the galley.  Everyone in the yard got involved and a good laugh was had by all.  We sure hope we never have to replace that again!

Currently, we sail San Francisco Bay and the California Coast, enjoying occasionally sailing past another Gulfstar, but as nearest we can tell, there is only one other 47' Sailmaster sloop rig and two ketch rigs in the Bay Area. 

If anyone knows additional history of the former "Pacific Wanderer" or our "Destiny", we would love to hear from you.  We'd also like to hear from other Gulfstar owners in our area.

sydestiny@juno.com

09/13/2004