Kicking it old school
It's 11:20 Wednesday morning and the deck is awash after a night of motoring into the swell. We left Youngstown at 1:00am to catch the lull in the weather, it had been blowing 35km/h or more throughout the day and although the light winds rolled in around ten we decided to wait until late to let the swells subside.
We spent Tuesday exploring Youngstown. Most of the stores don't open until Wednesday so we just biked around looking for some trouble to get into.
We explored a number of parks until we found the one with the best climbing trees for Henry to hone his skills on. Although climbing a tree is still a little out of reach for me since my stroke I still navigate a cliff or escarpment pretty well, so down the Niagara escarpment we went, to the river below. We capped of the adventure with a couple of subs from the local pizzeria.
Henry spent the remainder for the afternoon working on his online studies. We had thought Henry would be able to remain in the TDSB through their online optional attendance program but that was only available to kids with special needs. The school guidance councillor connected us with an online education program she had experience with so that's the way we went. He's taking Math, Science, English, and course on education success. So far it's got mixed reviews.
I spent the afternoon finishing up the details on some projects, our back up depth sounder is working again, I borrowed a grinder to clean up and polish the welds on aft life rails before hanging the life netting, and one last application of silicone to the seems of the shower stall before we get it wet.
By the time I got all the tools cleaned up and put away it was time for a nap. I set the alarm for 11:00pm so I could grab a shower and secure the boat before heading out, I let Henry sleep, thinking he might sleep all the way through to tomorrow. That was not to be the case, Fred has quite the rumble when your running at 7 knots into a swell, it's not a quiet engine but it's a bullet proof work horse.
The big man joined me in the cockpit as we exited the mouth of the Niagara river shortly after 1:00am. As not to repeat the mistakes made on our initial voyage I watched some you tube tutorials on our new GPS, and spent around three hours getting to know our new friend. Although we got off to a rough start I think we'll end up being good friends!
We had initially planned on motoring to Rochester but with the overnight portion of the trip over and a a bright sunny day instore we decided to press on to Oswego. We should get in by around 6:30pm today after covering 128 miles in seventeen hours. Hopefully we'll get a good nights rest tonight before we begin the upward climb to the Erie canal then downward climb to the Hudson.
It will be nice to get Lake Ontario behind us, motoring in open water with the mast strapped to the deck is stressful so it will be nice to get into the protected waters of the canals, save of course for Lake Oneida, the scourge of any sailor transiting the canal. It's a shallow lake full of oversized power boats zooming around kicking up a wake that will roll your boat around like a barrel going through the Niagara rapids. Unlike past trips our mast cradle is well tested and ready for the Lake Oneida challenge.
Thirteen years ago when we delivered Island Eclipse from Annapolis to Toronto there used to be a small fair on the waters edge at the East end of Lake Oneida, hopefully it's still there and we can ride the midway under the watchful eye of an eighteen year old playing games on his smart phone! Or maybe we'll just grab a couple of hot dogs and watch other people gamble with their lives.
It's noon now and the seas have subsided enough that I can back down the RPM's on the engine and still make 7 knots, Fred guzzles the fuel if we engage warp speed to climb big waves and truck through the rough slop.
When we sailed Sassy back from Florida in 2009 I found the boat severely underpowered, into a tide or a swell she'd only do 5.5 knots. After getting our asses handed to us on more than one occasion during the trip home I was already looking for our next boat, a big, heavy center cockpit with an engine that could pull a house.
For those less interested in the boat maintenance and repair portion of the blog you might want to skip ahead to the next paragraph!.. The rule of thumb when choosing the correct horse power engine for your boat is 3hp per tonne plus ten percent. Island Eclipse is between fifteen and sixteen tonnes which calls for an engine roughly 54hp which the original engine was. Noooooo thanks, the bare minimum is just the advised starting point, some days and in some conditions you need to climb those six foot waves at 7 knots so your wife and son don't barf all over the boat and retire from sailing completely. Hens forth Island Eclipse will be powered by an 80hp Ford Lehman tractor engine. Easy to repair, parts are affordable, and it was the largest none turbo engine I could shoehorn through the companion way.
Island Eclipse will do 8.5 knots up hill in 50km/hr winds but not on this portion of trip, with 250' of chain in the anchor locker and a third the mast sticking out the front like a battering ram we're bow heavy and plowing into each and every wave, if we crash down from a big wave rigged like this we'll be less sailboat and more submarine. Oswego here we come!
Deb will be flying down for a visit Thanksgiving weekend, hopefully we'll have progressed far enough by then that New York will be just a short train ride away and we can explore the Big Apple together. We had planned on picking up a mooring ball at the 79th street boat basin but we've heard it's closed so we'll probably tie up north of Manhattan on the Hudson.
In 2009 when we brought Sassy back our trip through New York was marred in tragedy when a sight seeing plane crashed into a sight seeing helicopter sending them both into the Jersey side of the river closing the Hudson for most of the day. They eventually opened the Manhattan side of the river allowing us to make our destination, picking up a mooring at 79th street. It rained for the next three days we were on the mooring ball, the rain seemed fitting considering the tragedy that had just taken place.
That's it for todays entry, the battery on the computer says it's so. Thanks for reading. Fair winds.
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