We regret to announce that our marvellous yacht Trillium has today been consigned to a kindly Cobourg boat recycler. Hull # 50 of the Hughes 29 series, Trillium was built in Centralia, Ontario c. 1971 by the Hughes Brothers and US Steel. Her original home was at the Presqu'ile Yacht Club in Brighton. She was a classic yacht design in fibreglass with Sparkman & Stephens influence in a narrow reverse counterstern and beam and an extraordinary cast lead keel of 3000 lbs which accounted for almost half of her 6500 lb displacement and which was affixed to the hull by a double system of a half dozen massive stainless steel keel bolts reinforced with a fibreglass encasement. Her keel-hull joint remained entirely sound to the end of her 50 year life despite repeated challenges during the tenure of her final owner to say nothing of her earlier days. Under our skilled guidance alone she scored six groundings, five of them hard (Main Duck Island, False Ducks Island, Point Traverse (soft grounding), Lower Gap (Melville Shoal), Belleville Bay of Quinte (Moira River mouth), and finally when she was gored by the ox at Ox Point at the Massassauga Narrows in the Bay of Quinte in September 2021. This concussion proved a mortal smite as the hull was now breached. The brilliant services of Captains Bray & Bresset and their support crew and flotilla along with Finkle Crane were engaged for her extraction from the horns of the ox and haulout at BQYC. Her final gentle voyage to a Cobourg yard was courtesy of Robert Smith marine transport. One might wonder as to how these groundings occurred and we offer no excuse other than "slight miscalculations at inopportune moments", the last being within a minute of the skipper's assumption of the helm to demonstrate to the crew the finer points of shoal sailing. An impressive number of calls went out over the years to Prescott Coast Guard radio, and Coast Guard captains cowered at the mention of the name Trillium. In her final agony the Belleville Fire boat crew and the local volunteer rescue boat crew of QSAR provided admirable service on a breezy day. The responses of a local private marina and CTOW in Kingston were interesting.

Our dozen years with this vessel was a privilege, as was our previous decade aboard the Allan Nye Scott Alberg 22 Chapter Two. Trillium sailed like a dream. Over the course of our tenure we made two jibs (110 and 85) and two mainsails (full size, and second reef sized, the latter proving ideal for 12 to 15 knot winds in Big Bay), three with the assistance of Sailrite in Indiana, and the small mainsail with the assistance of John Clark at Kingston Sail Loft, all in 7 oz dacron and with acrylic sun strips finally applied to both jibs this past winter.

When Trillium came into our possession a dozen years ago to the day in November 2009 where she had been languishing at the Waupoos Marina we contracted with the late talented and mercurial Mike Bolton of Bolton Marine in Glenora. Mike did a magnificent job in re engineering the boat, replacing the original Atomic 4 with a Vetus twin cylinder diesel which proved to be a real work horse, extricating us as it did from sundry situations. Mike also completed a number of other improvements and he was our regular go-to chief engineer, as well more latterly as was Bob Perry, particularly for cosmetic repairs to our beloved keel after those incidents of unjust punishment.

We had many adventures, particularly on our six annual eastern Lake Ontario September expeditions described in the Trillium logs at eloerg.tripod.com/waupoos2012 . These occurred during our time at the Waupoos Marina and continued after our move to Belleville at Meyer's Pier and the BQYC about six years ago when we wearied of the driving and the knock on effects of PEC real estate inflation.

No doubt Trillium could have been repaired to sail another fifty years. However we divined some natural hesitancy on the part of surveyors and insurance companies. So after a couple of months of considering our options we reluctantly decided to let this astonishing vessel rest in peace.

Thanks also to R. Verschoor, Pieter deBoer, Bob Owen, Justin Davidson, Mark Gorman, Emma Gorman, Logan MacGregor, Peter Sheppard, Frank Boyce, M. Samuel Leduc, Chris Vinden, Dave Wilby, Rick Graham, D. Gill, S. Macklin, Waupoos Marina, BQYC and phenoms Dawn and Kevin of Meyer's B Dock.

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Eastern Lake Ontario Environmental Research Group