Mississippi Float (Sail??) Trip

[Tom Hoffman]

Hey Every Body...

My wife and I are going to put our boat in the Mississippi at Dubuque, Ia. this coming Friday and Sail (float) her down to about Clinton and turn around and go back up stream to the trailer and home the following Saturday.

If any of you live close and would like to spend a day or two in your boat or and afternoon sailing along in ours, I would like to extend the invitation. We enjoy meeting new people and the unknown is a little less intimidating with others.

We have never been on the Mississippi to go down stream to see what's there. We did spend a few weeks up on Lake Pepin (Mississippi wide spot) in between Mn and Wi.

If you are interested. Give ma a shout.

319 827 1515
or email direct.

Tom Hoffman

 

[Slade]

Have a great trip! Just got my boat in the water at Pepin and had our first sail on Saturday. If you get up to Pepin again give us a shout.

Will be very interesting in your trip as I have thought about visiting my parents in Ft. Myers, FL via the Mississippi.

 

[Peggie Hall HeadMistress]

Are you sure this is a good time to do this?

The Mississippi may not actually be flooding up at your end, but it is running awfully fast, with strong currents, back eddies, and all kinds of UNkind conditions that can chew up a small craft and spit it out. I think I'd have a chat with the CG before casting off the lines.

 

[Tom Hoffman]

Trip Report:

In a word. Bust!!!

Lots of Rain and High Winds. 30+mph most of the time. Heavy rain. The two days we did try to go out, wind was blowing up stream and we went through Lock 11 and into a large pool. The pool was over normal depth due to the heavy rains of the previous weeks and it was hiding all sorts of wing dams etc. The operational channel was very narrow. It snaked from one side to the other and even though we were watching the dept finder religiously, we still managed to contact the end of a wing dam a glancing blow. No damage. After motoring an hour, we decided to head back and when we turned around, we had only gone about 2 miles above the Lock.

It was brutal, no fun at all.

We tried one more day and the wind was down stream and we motored up stream for about 3 miles, that took an hour and a half, we turned down stream and raised the jib and finally we had quiet and could relax on the way back to the Lock. That only took about a half an hour.

All in all, not something I would recommend. There were a few other sailors and most of what they did was sail around in very small circles in the channel just a 1/4 mile out from the Marina.

Check my other post on results of the Power Tiller and New Motor mount.

Tom...