Thoughts on cruising St. Lawrence to Atlantic from Ontario in Sept or Oct?

[Robert1224]

Cruising Question,

For those sailors that have cruised the St. Lawrence in the fall. I have some friends that are cruising out the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic this fall. It will be in September or October based on their flexibility with scheduling. Has anyone had experience with this and if so, any thoughts, recommendations, advice, words of wisdom or caution?

Thanks!
Bob

 

[dlochner]

@Robert1224 I have not done this trip yet, however, it is on our plans. The preferred time for this transit is early June. Lake Ontario to the Gulf of St. Lawrence is about 1000 miles and takes the better part of a month or more to complete.
The trip is north, so the weather gets progressively worse over the course of the trip and you arrive in the North Atlantic in October or November, then what? Do they plan on leaving the boat or continuing onward? The N Atlantic is no fun in the winter, nor is sailing down the eastern seaboard.

If their goal is to get south, then leaving in early October and going down the Erie Canal is a viable option. However, since the NY Power Authority has taken over operations on the canal, it has been closing earlier than in past years, sometime around the middle of October.

Hope this helps.

 

[Benny17441]

Isn't that a little bit late? I was up there in April and there was still ice in some of the waterways.

 

[Claude L.-Auger]

I have done this trip a number of times. Preferred time is from mid-June to mid-September. Assuming the idea is to head south, then you'll sail along the south shore. You're still going north but not as bad as if hugging the north shore. From Rimouski on to Gaspé, katabatic winds near the rivers valleys often force to navigate 4 to 5 miles offshore before coming back into the ports. Ports themselves are often 50 miles from one another thus making for very long days. Conditions will be wet, cold and miserable and at that time of the year night sailing is that much more dangerous. You can winter the boat on the hard in Gaspé, roughly 600 statute miles from Montreal (+/- 12 hours by car). If the idea is to head south, then it's much easier and shorter to take the mast down and transit via the Erie Canal from Lake Ontario to the Hudson River, re-step the mast after Albany, NY, and then go south.

 

[capta]

After making the trip into the lakes from Fla up the SLS, I chose to go down the Illinois River to the Mississippi to return to Fla. I had no desire to do the St Laurence Seaway ever again. Solid fog, so thick I often couldn't see the bow of the boat from the helm, from Shelburne, NS to Kingston, Ontario, rude and unaccommodating SLS pilots (we had a 10' draft) and extremely unpleasant American lock workers made the trip pretty difficult and unpleasant.