The Sailing Adenutres of Island Eclipse

In the Blind

Sailing is not for the faint of hearts, and it's definitely not for those in a rush. It has it's ups and it's downs, it can be a hard slog on tough seas through rain and sleet or it can be a calm anchorage on a beach. To be a sailor at heart you have to find the best in both to make it worth while because living only for the good days isn't enough.

Almost every cruising story anyone's ever told me starts with their worst moment, their moment of perseverance, the moment they overcame the odds and succeeded. Those sailors who have no stories of such epic moments to tell probably never left the dock.

We bought Island Eclipse as a fixer upper in 2010 when the Canadian US dollar was at par. We never dreamed we'd own a boat like her. She's a fifteen tonne ocean capable cruiser desperate to prove her pedigree. Although we'd been restoring her for the last twelve years the final prep was a slog. All those things we delayed either because of difficulty or cost have to completed before go day September 23. 2023.

From Lake Ontario you can get to the open Ocean a number of ways, the St Lawrence river travels east from Lake Ontario through Quebec and New Brunswick to the North Atlantic. The Erie canal can be accessed via the Oswego canal in Oswego New York. After south east and transiting 27 locks you arrive at Waterford New York at the top of the Hudson The third way and probably the longest would be to join the Mississippi river in Chicago, after traveling through the Welland canal, lake Erie and Lake Michigan. You join the Mississippi were it begins in Chicago and travel south to Louisiana where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

We'll be taking the Erie canal which closes October tenth for the season. We didn't want to be stuck north of the 40th parallel waiting for the end of Hurricane season spending US dollars so we decided to leave roughly three weeks before the canal closed to account for weather and other unforeseen circumstances. Once we transit the canal we'll put our mast back up, rig the boat and sail down the Hudson to New York where we'll spend a week or so.

As we approached our go, no go date pressure to complete our projects built, details matter for an undertaking like this and it's the details that take time. The wind prediction for September twenty third was dire so we chose to leave at four in the morning on the twenty third in order to arrive in Niagara on the lake before the worst of it sets in for the rest of the week.

It was around one in the morning when I completed the oil change on Fred our main propulsion engine a Ford Lehman 80 tractor engine I installed soon after buying the boat. Our Onan eight kilowatt generator Barny didn't have many hours on the oil so I left that until we'd ran it a couple of times. Once the bikes were loaded and the garbage taken out Henry and I set sail departing the Queen city yacht Club lagoon shortly before four am. No matter what I write, the words don't accurately depict the details of our final preparations. Only the exhausted look on our faces could tell that story accurately.

We'd sailed in an out of Toronto harbor more times than I can count over the last fifteen years at the club so leaving at night was nothing new. the only thing new on this part of the adventure was our new Lowrance GPS. We fired that up for the first time as we traveled through the inner harbour towards the eastern gap. Henry took to the deck to retrieve our fenders before hitting open water. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to turn down the brightness on the GPS as we headed out the gap. I asked Henry to pilot the boat while I worked on the GPS. About five minutes into the trip we traded paint with a green buoy Henry couldn't see on account of the glare from the GPS on the windshield. After reassuring him that the incident wasn't his fault I asked him to fire up the tablet we usually use to navigate. He ran down the companion way and brought old Faithfull up to the cockpit, he was opening up the Navionics program when I said to him doesn't that red look a little odd? He looked up and with a shriek of terror he yelled "Dad it's the spit, reverse, reverse". we managed to slow her down a bit before we hit he bottom. It wasn't sand, the Leslie street spit has been built over the years with dirt from the excavation of the subway, office towers and condos, and old building foundations. As the keel rolled over the concrete we rose and fell before coming to a stop. Henry ran down and checked the bilge, and although we were water tight we were stuck, unceremoniously bobbing with the mast hanging off the foredeck stuck in a tree.

Yep we didn't need to wait for the shallow waters of Florida and the Bahamas to run aground, we managed to do it less than ten minutes from home in otherwise deep water. We took a moment to turn off the new GPS for the foreseeable future and consider our predicament, other than being stuck and completely embarrassed we were still afloat and otherwise unscathed. I walked to the foredeck to access our situation further and clear the tree branches off the mast.

After a few minutes contemplating our situation I returned to the helm and began the arduous task of getting us the heck out of there. It was a lot like getting a car out that's stuck in the snow. A little forward, a little reverse a little reverse, a little forward and then a lot of reverse! After ten or fifteen minutes of this we finally popped free, reversing our way to deep water.

We have a rule on island Eclipse brought on by many a rough day at sea, if three things go wrong we call it quits and return home. We were only two oops's in at this point so we decided to push on. Once we cleared the end of the spit the seas we'd hoped had subsided had not. Like Gilligan and the skipper our little ship was tossed, taking the swells on the beam with the mast on deck was both harrowing and uncomfortable. Without the mast aloft to counter act the mass of the ballast in the keel the boat rolls back and forth like a pendulum, everything not tied down inside or out begins to crash loudly throughout the vessel. Henry runs around the boat securing as much as he could as I set the autopilot the do the grunt work freeing me up to Help Henry right the ship.

After an hour or so Henry headed off to bed in the aft birth as dear old dad and the auto pilot slogged on through the nigh, arriving in Niagara on the Lake early around ten in the morning. We didn't lose the mast thanks to all the time and effort securing it properly, the bikes, fuel tanks, scuba tanks and propane tanks also made it through the night.

In a personal victory much needed after the evening events I was able to pick up a mooring ball all by myself in the four knot current of the Niagara river while Henry slept well into the early afternoon. I managed to squeeze in a three hour nap before my wife Deb and our good friend Ed showed up to move the boat into US waters.

Traveling on a British passport I'm not allowed to cross into the US by boat so I had to drive around and cross the boarder at a land crossing. I took the Rainbow bridge into the US and connected with the boat in Youngstown NY were we sit waiting for our next weather window to move east towards Oswego.

Special thanks to my wife Deb who's continued support has made this trip possible. Back in January of this year Deb was offered a promotion at work, and although it meant she'd be managing her office it also meant she couldn't join us for the entire trip. Fortunately she'll be flying down to meet us at various points throughout our adventure, the first of which will be NY in two weeks.

Also a special thanks to all those who helped with Island Eclipse over the years: Ed Vader Kruk, Laurence Concanon, Phil Chatterton, Ian Trites, Nick Ciancotta, Mike Veenhuizen, Paul Veter, and Paul Horn. I'd also like to thank Dwight and Carol Hamilton, Witt Webster, Jim Thornycraft and Bruce from Kokomo and Kris Coward for your contributions of maps, charts, guide books and radio equipment.

Although we've done this before things rarely go the same way twice, so everyday will be a new adventure as we transit the east coast to the Caribbean. Hopefully this blog will allow those who read it to come along for the adventure and possibly inspire you to take of one of your own.

LESSONS LEARNT SO FAR. Test new equipment on the dock, not on the water.

Accidents can happen anywhere,

The top pictures are two weeks out from our departure date. Lots to do and nowhere to sit! As you can see by the scupper hose hidden in the back of the closet that no stone should be left un turned before a trip of this nature.

Aft Shower prior to refit.