Castleton-on-the-Hudson

It was a three hour trip from Waterford, New York to Castleton-on-the-Hudson. Although it was only 20 miles or so, we had to transit one more lock before we entered tidal waters. The tidal stop for the Hudson River, Lock 1, is located a staggering 154 miles up stream. It controls the flow of fresh water down the Hudson, and prevents brackish salt water from inundating further north.

As we headed south after clearing Lock 1 the shore line was dotted with industry tugs until a few miles outside Albany, the capital of the state of New York. Not a very sprawling city, it came and went fairly quickly amid all the industry that surround it.

We passed our last fuel bunker three or four miles south of Albany, replaced by trees and houses, you soon forget that the highspeed rail line and highway rest just beyond the lush foliage. The landscape continues to change as we sail south, the trees no longer sport their autumn colours, lush green trees fill the countryside, off in the distance the silhouette of the Catskills fills the sky.

We arrived in Castleton Thursday at noon. Docking Island Eclipse took some careful consideration now that we had tidal currents to manage, but we got the job done without incident. We were the last boat in so we'd be stepping our mast last, which was great for us , we got a chance to get a good lay of the land and the equipment. The experience reminded me how good we have it at Queen City.

The first mast had to be assembled before it was stepped similar to our situation. The rub here is that the crane doesn't, spin so you have to assemble the mast on the dock. They also limit the crane's travel in and out so you've really got to tug on the mast to land it on the dock.

With much effort and patience we managed to get the first mast on the dock. We had set up some blocks for it to rest on while they worked. Once they had the mast ready to go, we stepped it relatively quickly. It was a big, heavy, single spreader mast off of a 1983 CC Landfall 43 Center cockpit sloop, so stepping it was a lot to manage.

The second boat was a ketch so the main mast was much smaller and the mizzen could be lifted by hand. They left the rigging intact for the journey so it didn't need any prep, it went up and on without much commotion, as did the mizzen, which took us until the end of the day.

Once Henry and I had finished dinner he read a book, while I started preparing for our turn at the crane. I removed all but four of the straps, the whisker pole, and the bikes and with some help, the furlings. Once I was considerably worn out I retired to the cockpit for our last episode of the Hardy Boys.

Our new found cruising buddy Alfred sailed an Ericson 27, his mast was still rigged and ready to go so we decided to put his up first. By noon we were on to Island Eclipse. I'd built some rudimentary saw horses for our mast to rest on while we worked. With some careful maneuvering we managed to free the mast from its finely tuned resting place and land it on the dock. I had to remove all of the standing rigging, spreaders and furlings to get the mast to fit on the boat, the space between the hard top and the solar panels only left two inches of wiggle room up and down, making it most difficult.

It was about three o'clock when we finally had the mast rigged and ready to go, not without a little excitement of course. We left the crane cable and strap attached to the mast while we worked, on account of the wobbly saw horses the 1000lb mast was sitting on. We thought it a wise decision right up to the moment the tide went down far enough for the bottom end of the mast to release from the saw horse, it suddenly began swinging out into the river with me holding on for the ride. I yelled for help trying desperately to stay out of the water, the cavalry came to my rescue after hearing my shrieks for assistance. Once the drama had subsided we all had a good laugh, relieved the oops wasn't a costly reminder that the water here goes up and down.

It was late afternoon before the mast was up and the rig tightened enough for us to move away from the crane. Our cruising friends moved to an anchorage for the night, but we decided to stay dockside to tune the mast, load the sails and ready the boat to sail. It was also calling for a lot of rain over night and the next day so anchoring would have to wait.

By Saturday evening the boat was almost ready to go. The rig was tuned, the new alternator had been installed and the boat was ready for the Admirals inspection.

We eagerly awaited Deb's arrival, like we were waiting for Santa at Christmas. She flew into Newark airport earlier in the afternoon and had to take three trains and an Uber to make it the rest of the way. A consummate team player she stopped by the grocery store on the final leg of her journey to pick up some much needed items.

After much anticipation Deb finally arrived at the boat around 9:30pm Saturday, to much fan fair. Our crew was finally back together!! We had dinner and caught up for a while before calling it a night. The next morning we loaded the last sails onto the boat, fueled up and hit the water. It had gotten too late to go very far so we found an anchorage a short distance from Castleton and dropped the hook for the first time on our trip, finally putting to use the thousand dollar 200' length of chain I'd purchased earlier in the summer.