Grindz145.... where are the pictures?
Sounds like an amazing trip so far!
Sorry, Here are some pictures from my phone. I have a ton of gopro footage that I'll eventually make into a video of some sort.
I didn't get footage of the hairier events, just because I was too busy draining the blood from my knuckles while holding on to the tiller for dear life.... okay it wasn't that bad.
so continuing on
-Thursday we headed out from the public docks in A-Bay and cruised down the st lawrence river to Sand Bay, between Clayton and Cape Vincent. It was pretty choppy from all the freighters and other powerboats, even though there wasn't any weather. I really wanted to sail, but the channel is so narrow I didn't bother. We anchored in sand bay in about 10 feet of water and put out boats together powerboater style
. We hung out there for hours, but then took off and spent the night at Cedar Point state park, where they have a really nice sheltered harbor. There wasn't a whole lot of water there, but that's the beauty of 2' draft.
-Friday we headed out at 5am intending to make the passage over the lake back to Oswego. We made a stop in Cape Vincent for breakfast and and to fuel up the gas tanks. I love that little town, and I wish we had stayed. We headed out of the channel (I think I may have even seen another Hunter 23?) and headed toward galoo island. It quickly became apparent that I was not going to make it across. Winds were coming due south and it made it very hard to make progress, even motoring. The waves werent huge but they were just the right frequency and shape to make it difficult to go the direction we wanted to. We crashed through the waves for a while, before setting a more agreeable course towards stony island. We threw anchor there in a somewhat protected bay for the night. There were several other cruising sailboats who did the same thing later. Probably ~40 foot boats. They did not bob around as much as we did
We obsessively listened to the weather radio and texted friends for weather updates (no data signal here). There were thunderstorms and a quick moving cold front in the forecast. I didn't sleep very good, because I constantly got up to check the anchor, even though I have an app on my phone which was supposed to alarm if we dragged the anchor enough. We didn't, but I was excited to get moving again.
-Saturday we woke woke up to my alarm at 3:30 am, pitch black, I pulled up the anchor and headed out while my fiance slept (typical for this trip with average 5am take offs)
I navigated by GPS, deptsounder, and a few anchor lights from several sailboats around Galloo and stony island. We unfortunately did not even put out sails up all the way home, becuase the weather was just not terribly agreeable. We motored the 30 miles of open lake, (while listening to my favorite radio station WBER, from ~80 miles away in Rochester), and arrived in the Oswego Harbor at 9:30am, just as it started to pour. We got setup with our dock and setup the boom-tent. It didnt rain terribly long in the end, but little did we know there was some solid red- nasty storms on the radar out in the lake. we made it just in time. We enjoyed the day in Oswego, but after being on that relatively small boat for over 26 hours, we were ready to get home.
-Sunday (today) we set out at 5am from Oswego, and by we I mean me, with my fiance asleep until about 6 or so
The waves were not very agreeable this morning either, average was only about 1-2 feet, but we would get some 3-4 foot rollers every once and a while that did not make it comfortable. We motored the 35 miles back to pultneyville in about 5.5 hours, which was pretty fast considering I have to turn 90 degrees off-course to contend with larger waves every 10 minutes or so, and we didn't fly any sails. I was very happy to be on land again after arriving in pultneyville harbor.
Comments:I have a love-hate relationship with the 5hp Nissan outboard. It is a fantastic design, never really pops out of the water except for really big waves, runs terrific, super reliable, and crazy fuel efficient (we averaged upwards of 15mpg while motoring ~1.5 hours / gallon) but goddamnit, that thing is loud. We had to wear earplug while motoring, unless just idleing it with the sails up. I also need an external fuel tank, becuase I keep having to watch the clock, and for safety, I fill up every hour. When in 3 foot waves, it really starts to be a chore reaching the gas tank over the back of the boat. I'm happy the thing is super-reliable though and (knock on wood) I haven't even had to replace or clean the sparkplug yet. Not bad for a 2-stroke.
The boat sails really well. I've sailed it maybe 200-300 miles so far, but another couple hundred with open water sailing, has provided me with some more insight. I find that in higher winds she really sails just fine with the jib alone. No sense overpowering this thing with only 800 lbs ballast. Having a shallow draft is really slick too. I know alot of hardcore sailers will take stability over draft any day, and after this trip I really understand why, but being able to dock in a slip normally reserved for a small fishing boat is such an amazing adventure tool that I have to love that feature. It allowed us tons of flexibility. I really have to get the auto-reefing line setup. It wasn't setup when I bought the boat and I realized over time what it was for. That setup is going to be sick, because reefing is a pain in the ass, especially with the slider setup on my mast. You shouldn't have to reconfigure those to reef.
Also, as an aside, my solar panel setup it wicked. Having a 20W panel and a 115ah battery was perfect for charging tablets, computers, phones, running nav lights, and even a fan. I average about 8-12Ah a day with the setup, and it's really not optimized. I figure that even with variable sun I could fully charge the 1.4kWh battery in like 15-20 days, which sounds like alot, but it means I don't have to charge the battery off of shore power unless doing a week+ long trip. Which is rare. It would be nice to have a charging unit from the motor, but in the end it will only eat away efficiency from the motor, so solar is the way to go.
Hope someone enjoys my account of the trip anyway
PS: TOTAL MILEAGE : ~280mi in ~10 days. Not bad for the first big trip with the boat!