Driftless in the water!

[tribologist]

Got Driftless in the water. Had to start with steeling a mooring for a little while. There were heavy fog in Groton CT at Avery Point.

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Fog was insane!!

After a while it cleared and we could head to Mystic.

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Today we took a trip up to Westerly RI. Lots of boats out! Tomorrow is trailer centering device test day!

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ni

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[honza]

Please let us know, how the trailer centering works! Thanks.

[DesertAlbin736]

Awesome! "Rotten Groton" as we used to call it in the Navy (submarine school in '71, Gato 615 rafted up to the USS Fulton sub tender at State Pier through January, '72).

When we had La Dolce Vita out there in 2015 we put her in a transient slip for a week in Norwest Marine on the CT side of Pawcatuck River downstream from Westerly as our base of ops.

Plans for this year's east coast trip are proceeding apace. Anticipate launching & starting eastbound on the Erie Canal around mid August and going from on from there. That would put arriving at Waterford & the Troy Lock toward the end of the month, and NYC by around Labor Day. Timing will depend on our sailing friends' ETA in Tonawanda after their 900 mile passage from the Apostle Islands on Lake Superior from Washburn, WI and keeping to their planned jump off date of July 5th or 6th. Will keep you posted on our progress.

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Looking forward to a possible meet up somewhere along the way. Can't wait to get out of the AZ summer desert heat. It's 100's from here on out, 111 by a week from tomorrow. We're parking our boat up in Flagstaff at the end of this month until we leave in late July. That we can pack & sort things out up there where it's 20 to 30 degrees cooler instead of down here where inside the cabin will be over 125 degrees.

Cheers!

PS, regarding fog, that's the one thing that may hinder our friends' progress across the Great Lakes, that they may get stuck in port several days due to fog that doesn't lift. Here's my favorite fog picture at anchor off Sidney Spit, Sidney Island near Vancouver Island, BC in 2019. That was some thick fog!

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[DesertAlbin736]

Tomorrow is trailer centering device test day!

I'm a little concerned you may end up with the same problem with centering as we have. That is that as you pull the boat out the front half of the hull will settle on the bunks before the keel engages the V notch, especially if wind and/or current pushed the boat too far to one side or the other & outside of the V notch. On the other hand, it might not be a problem after all because your bunks don't extend as far forward as ours do. Let's hope it works as intended. If the boat swings too far one way or the other you could do like we do, try to get a ramp lane next to the dock if there is one, then stand by the stern with a dock line in one hand and boat hook in the other while a helper (Admiral or other) drives the truck slowly up the ramp. That way you can keep the boat from swinging too far & make sure the keel within the V as it comes out of the water.

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[tribologist]

That thing worked perfect! I will post in trailer thread

[motthediesel]

Kudos to you! Nice job on the centering blocks.

I finished my pre-launch projects today, and fired up the engine (briefly) as well. We may launch West Hawk this week, but low water levels on the St Lawrence are a bit of a concern.

[tribologist]

Kudos to you! Nice job on the centering blocks.

I finished my pre-launch projects today, and fired up the engine (briefly) as well. We may launch West Hawk this week, but low water levels on the St Lawrence are a bit of a concern.

Nice! Are the Canadians still hostile to Covid laden americans? Maybe Swedes are welcome (even though they managed Covid worse than most..)

We would love the do a trip around the thousand islands area this summer. It's well within a day drive for us. It's about a 5.5 hr drive so a good drive up on a thursday, drop the boat and stay the night in the marina. THen spend Friday-Sat cruising, staying Fri-Sat at a different marina, go back to launch marina on Saturday afternoon . Stay the night and pull out in the morning.

Is there a good place to launch and store the trailer up there? (Marina with good food! ) What would be a good Friday-Saturday Marina? If you like to so something similar in Hudson I would do Donovans south of Albany (The Boathouse has excellent food!) and then go up to Cresent Boatclub just after the flight. At cresent you are eating Dominos... One of the club officers run the local Dominos. If you take delivery to the boat club you will get them looking like the pictures...

[DesertAlbin736]

Nice! Are the Canadians still hostile to Covid laden americans?

Afraid so. They're looking for tunas that taste good, not tunas with good taste. This is the latest questionnaire result for non-essential cross border travel (click on picture for zoom in view). Being fully vaccinated doesn't count (there is no uniform "vaccine passport").

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Then again things could change sooner than later. This update from 4 days ago.

https://www.king5.com/article/news/heal ... a1d3b56c64

Remember my mention of this Arizona friend who keeps his large sailboat docked in Sidney, BC & met up with us in Desolation Sound in 2018? He still hasn't been able to return to his boat since the beginning of COVID border closures. He pays caretakers to look after it, but he can't cross the border to get to it.

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[motthediesel]

Yes, I’m afraid the border is still closed. And that means completely, we cannot even sail in Canadian waters without landing — bummer!

As a lifelong resident of Thousand Islands, I am usually a big promoter of the area, but probably the most beautiful areas are, unfortunately, in Ontario waters. If I was going to haul a boat up here to see it, I’d wait until until I could see it all.

Tom

[tribologist]

Thanks Tom and Steve. Hopefully they open later this summer. We should send them a few million doses of vaccine...

[DesertAlbin736]

Yes, I’m afraid the border is still closed. And that means completely, we cannot even sail in Canadian waters without landing — bummer!
As a lifelong resident of Thousand Islands, I am usually a big promoter of the area, but probably the most beautiful areas are, unfortunately, in Ontario waters. If I was going to haul a boat up here to see it, I’d wait until until I could see it all.

Bummer indeed! That dashed our plans for last year & again this year we're forced to stay on the US side & head south instead. That begs the question for our friends sailing across the Great Lakes, specifically the "Soo" locks in Sault St. Marie transiting from Lake Superior to Lake Huron. If indeed recreational US boaters are not allowed passage through the smaller more user friendly lock on the Canadian side then they will have to deal with the big freighter locks on the US side. If so that's going to s-u-u-u-u-u-u-c-k!

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