Blackjack was an icon here in Ottawa. In a harbour (and the entire lake) with boats of no more than 40 feet, a 78 foot brigantine really stands out. Tom Fuller, the man behind the conversion from tug to sailing yacht, was an interesting man. As a child, I remember being on board Blackjack listening to Tom tell war stories as a navy captain, capturing German boats in the Adriatic. We would jump from the yard arms into the water, listen to tall tales and learn knots from Tom and his crew.
Last summer I spent more time working on my boat than sailing it. Fortunately I have generous friends with boats
. My longest cruise last summer started out as a race but the wind did not cooperate. The LO300 starts from Port Credit ON, just East of Toronto, and follows a figure 8 down to Oswego, NY, up to Main Duck Island off Kingston, ON, down to Niagara and back up to Port Credit.
We made it down to Oswego, turned the corner and what little wind there was ended up on the nose. The forecast looked for much of the same for the next day and we didn't have a light air headsail to keep us moving up wind. After much deliberation we packed it in and headed back to Toronto. This turned in to a pleasure cruise the length of Lake Ontario. We had a beautiful sunset
Sundowners
And by the time we approached Toronto, some good wind. It's always hard to capture wind on camera, this was about 35 knots, maybe you can see it in the smile on Troy's face