The good, the bad and the ugly
Well my friends it's a foggy morning here on the Hudson River. Yep you read that correctly, Henry and I arrived in Waterford NY at 2pm Tuesday afternoon after transiting a total of 31 Locks, 183 miles and descending 435 feet in five days. Today is Henrys CBA mandated day of rest, not so for me. I'll be doing the household chores, Laundry, fill the water tank and some boat maintenance.
What's happened since the last time we posted? Lot's and nothing all at the same time. We arrived in Little Falls late Saturday to a friendly reception of Laundry, showers and a dollar a foot moorings. We helped a familiar boat dock, it was World War II tug from Korea similar to the one we winter with at Pier 4 marina in Toronto. The couple that bought it were steaming to New York to put it on a container ship destined for Alaska where they operate a remote charter. After dark we cooked up some butter chicken for dinner and we watched an episode or two of the Hardy Boys before calling it a day.
Henry had a restless night, tossing and turning throughout the night, I think his new body wash might have dried him out a bit so he was scratching as he slept. So when morning came around I let him sleep while I got to it. The attendants at the Marina were incredibly friendly and helpful. They gave me a ride to the grocery store after my shower to stock up on much needed items like FOOD! They insisted I not rush as they were happy to wait.
When I arrived back at the boat Henry was still in bed. After the usual half hour of insisting he finally got out up, just in time to help me fold the laundry and get off the dock.
I was still a little pie eyed and bushless tailed when we entered lock 17 but he soon got his game face on when he looked over the end of the and saw elevation we were about to descend. Although it's the biggest lock on the system it was no more difficult to manage than the previous 13 we'd already completed. The lock was configured differently than the rest, instead of opening barn doors it had a massive lift gate connected to an equally enormous concrete counter weight. Once the lock had been emptied the the enormous concrete slab began to drop, lifting the big steel gate high into the air allowing us clearance to pass underneath.
Although the current canal is much different from the original, the entire system is a true feet of engineering. Originally built in between 1817 and 1825 it spanned 362 mile between the Hudson and the great lakes. The canal has changed significantly over the past 206 years, it no longer follows the original path dug specifically for its use
The vessels that transited the canal in the early days were horse drawn so the canal couldn't be to wide. Horses on either side of the canal where hitched towed the shallow draft barges and pulled along the four foot deep flooded ditches. Once boats and ships were equipped with engines and propellers the the canal needed to be deepened and widened to accommodate the future.
The present day canal was completed in 1903 and follows the natural rives and lakes reducing the construction cost required to build a stand alone canal system. With a minimum depth of 12' throughout its 340 miles, it treks west from the Hudson to Lake Erie connecting sailors to an ocean they'de alway wanted to explore.
The late start Sunday limited our progresion to three locks that day. We made it as lock 14 were we found a quiet spot above the doors to tie up... Said no one ever... We did tie up above the lock but quiet it was not. A well groomed lawn and some Canadian Geese where all that separated us from the commercial railway line the 50 or so yards away. It's wasn't a sporadically used commuter line it's heavily used , four locomotives per train kind of line that lulled you to sleep with a vibration you could feel in the boat.
We set the barbeque up on the wall and cooked ourselves some pork chops, corn on the cob and what ended up to be a very uninspiring rice dish. Sorry Mom, that flavoured rice package you put in your cruising care package was less than ordinary, but thanks for thinking of us! We also made up a batch of Brownies, I was going to take a picture of them for the blog, but the big guy cut into them before I got the chance!
As you can well imagine we got an early start the next morning on account of the constant rumble and piercing whistles never letting up.
Although we'd hoped to make the Hudson by Monday to keep with our schedule it just wasn't meant to be. As we approached lock 8 I noticed that the ships a/c power was off, upon further investigation I was able to diagnose the problem. The alternator had crapped out in grand style, not only had it stopped charging it had broken the upper mounting bracket causing the unit to wobble violently. The failed unit must have been putting out just enough voltage to trick the solar panels into thinking the batteries where full when in fact they weren't.
The inverter supplies a/c power to the boat by covnerting the battery supplied d/c power, it's programed to shut down once the batteries have reached 50% depletion. As the batteries discharge energy across an measuring device called a shunt the charge controllers and inverter count the amps going in and out in order to monitor the charge condition of the batteries. The alternator somehow disrupted the measuring of the amps in and out, tricking the inverter into thinking we'd spent all our useable power.
Once we got Island Eclipse secured we fired up Barney for the first time on the trip. Barney is an 8.5kw Onan diesel generator, a real workhorse but almost as loud as the trains from the nights before. Barny Makes Fred seem like the quieter of the two but that's not the case, they're both beasts of their own accord. The battery voltage started to come up once Barney was up to a full rumble, the inverter powered back up a few minutes later.
It was way to hot in the engine room to work on the alternator so we took a moment to consider our options. And then it came to us... so to speak. A couple of guys were charging their electric skateboards on a lamp post, when I took a look at the light it had two 15 amp receptacles we could plug into. Further into our conversation our two new friends informed us that all the lock walls throughout the canal had plugs in their light standards for cruisers to use. Hmmm good to know, even better if we'd known that when we started four days ago. So, off went Barney for a cleaner, quieter solution.
When we got back to it the next morning the batteries were charge to 96% and the engine was cool enough to work on so I Macgyvered the bracket and disconnected the positive battery wire eliminating it from the charging circuit. Now the solar panels would be free to do their work while we sourced a new alternator.
We took an early down lock jumping into the bucket with a power boat on the way past. This would be our last day in the canal, and we were eager to get it done. I'd noticed the bilge pump coming on more often recently and it was of great concern. Although we didn't ground hard on the way out of Toronto who knows what we hit, a piece of rebar could have puncture the keel. the worst case scenario was definitely on my mind but Island Eclipse is built like a tank so I was doubtful that our grounding was the culprit.
Because the boat is bow heavy the bilge pump isn't emptying the bilge making it hard to identify the leak. Fortunately I brought Rigid, our wet dry vacuum cleaner. I put the Rigid to work sucking out the last of the bilge water leaving me a clean dry bilge to monitor. It didn't take long to find the source of the problem. The new depth sounder we'd installed during our time on the hard in August was leaking, a fair bit in fact. There must be a void between the new backing plate and the hull allowing water to squeeze into the boat. Not so bad now but by Friday we'll be in salt water and that would be bad. After calling around looking for a place to haul out with no luck I decided to try and solve the problem in the water.
I managed to stuff butyl tape into the gapse around the backing plate slowing the water enough that I could epoxy around the backing plate sealing it. That was last night, and although it's still leaking a bit, it's considerably less than than before. Now that I know the concept works I'll epoxy around the flange one more time and see what happens.
We have to haul at least once before we cross the straits of Florida to Cuba at replace the backing plate on the skeg. It was on the to do list when we hauled out in August but the backing plate we had made wasn't quite right and we ran out of time before it could be modified. The working load on the backing plate in the turbulent seas of the straits could pull the skeg bolts through the corroded plate so it's got to be done before then. I'll just have to 5200 the transducer at that time, until then we'll just have to vacuum out the forward bilge every couple of days to stop the migration of the salt water throughout the rest of the boat.
We've finally made some cruising buddies! A Canadian couple from Georgian Bay on a C&C Landfall center cockpit with two kids, a little grill named Cora who's two and four month old little boy, and an American couple from Michigan on a ketch. They've been in the canal since Lake Erie, arriving in Waterford just ahead before we did. We sat on the dock last night trading stories and sharing a laugh. We're all going to make our way to Castleton on the Hudson Thursday to put up our masts and rig our boats. Let the sailing begin!!!
Three days until the Admiral arrives, got to get the boat ready for inspection!
Until next time, fair winds my friends. Happy Canadian thanksgiving to you all!!!
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