Haul out day 2

Today may have been our last haul out day with the tug. It’s currently under contract. The buyers did a survey earlier in the week and we were told everything went quite well. At this point we are just waiting for the buyer’s oil sample analysis to come back so they can be reassured that everything is in good working order with the main engine, generator, and transmission.

It will be a sad day when we let this boat go as we have done a lot of miles with it and really got to know how it works after living on it for a year during our Great Loop trip. It really is a perfect boat for 90% of the cruising adventurers we do and would still like to do like to do like the Down East Loop, Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, and maybe the Bahamas again. Unfortunately we would like to circumnavigate and then possibly spend some time in the Caribbean and this is not the ideal boat for that kind of adventure. Not that it could not do the Caribbean but having only a single engine when sometimes motoring more than 100 miles between destinations away from the safety of a service such as TowBoatUS was something I thought about quite a bit. With that said the boat never gave us any trouble and has been quite reliable. After we are done with the catamaran I'm sure we will go back to a trawler type boat but the next one will probably have twin engines if we still have any kind of plan to do more then coastal cruising. I'm also quite sure I'll never totally give up sailing but I may stick with the small and quite fun day sailors vs the big comfortable liveaboards or better yet maybe join a sailing club where I can use their small fast sailing boats vs owning two boats again.

What I learned from this boat.. 

1. 
   We don't need a fly bridge. It’s one more thing to clean, maintain, and riding up higher (on boats with one) made me slightly seasick in rougher conditions. I can say that I never felt seasick in this boat despite being in rough and uncomfortable conditions for long periods of time on a number of occasions. I really appreciate a pilot house. It’s well protected from the weather and easy to heat and cool as necessary. Not to mention not having to worry about canvas that always seems to end up dripping on my head during the rain. Another plus is we have real glass to look out vs staring out some malformed plastic dodger or even the fancy isinglass that still distorts things a bit. Not to mention the pilot house eliminated all the maintenance/regular replacement costs/headache's that go with that canvas and isinglass found on most fly bridges. 
2. Ensure your boat is as simple as possible and that things are at least somewhat easy to access when maintenance is needed. I really appreciated all of the cut outs in the back of the cabinets that allowed access to the deck cleats when it was time to rebed them (this was quite a difficult task on our two previous sailboats). I could get to the bottom of the shower to replace the drain hose (a feat that was not possible on our Beneteau). This boat did not have a full inverter system which eliminated another expensive failure point we had experienced on a previous boat. This boat was super simple to work on and I never ran into something that was extremely difficult to get to for maintenance.
3. A proper engine room is important. I spent a fair amount of time down there doing maintenance and having everything easily accessible with an engine that I could crawl around 360 degrees was amazing coming from sailboats that like to put their engines into small boxes forcing their owners to perform some really creative boat yoga moves to get to various parts that the designers decided should go unseen.
4. 
   Having a big fixed blade prop is great for maneuvering. The bow thruster on this boat was sized a bit too small to be effective in anything but good conditions. I often used it to steer the boat when backing into a slip otherwise we did not rely on it much. But I learned to use the rudder and prop wash to work to work my way off walls. The big prop helped with this in that I did not have to give the boat much power to get it moving and when I needed to stop the boat all I had to do is quickly drop it into reverse again rarely did I have to give it any extra power once that big prop kicked into gear the boat just stoped. This made it really easy to do slow controlled maneuvers in tight spaces.
5. Bridge clearance is a thing. This boat was under 15ft high. This allowed us to go under a number of bridges that many of the boats the same size as us but with fly bridges could not when traveling down the rivers, through Florida, and the Erie Canal.

I will admit that I'm happy to see it go in that owning two big boats left me feeling like one was always neglected, not being used enough, and provided two times the number of maintenance projects. At the same time I will be sad to see it go after having truly enjoyed living on it for a solid year doing the Great Loop and getting to know it and its systems quite well. It really was a comfortable boat for our family, it is easy to run, and fairly simple to work on. I'll also think about the adventures we could have done on it. It would have been a decent boat to do the Big U on (taking it all the way from Maine to Alaska) and it would have been fun to do the Great Loop one more time on it. But I'm sure when it comes time to do one of those trips another great boat will appear for us. But for now I'm a bit sad to think about letting it go.

Haul out day

After leaving the boat at Brands Marina for a couple of weeks we got the call that the Jet Express folks were ready for us to haul out. I recruited a friend to help out. We arrived at the boat about thirty minutes early to take the windshield down. This had been lifted at the prior yard in an effort to get the mast lower on the boat allowing the shrouds to lay on deck. Once the mast was lowered to the deck level they then put blocks under the windshield and reinstalled it over the top of the port shroud. Unfortunately our windshield is made of impact resistant glass and is quite heavy so it really took three of us to get it off. We ended up putting a blanket down and resting it on our table. Which seems to be where it will rest for the winter or until I figure out how to remove the blocks and get the window put back up.

As we got the window off we got the call that they were ready for us. We had 20kt winds and a pretty good current in the river that day. I would guess their haul out well is 30ft wide so there would not be much room for error. I got our friend Lance on the starboard side with a headset so he could tell me where we were position wise as with the mast down I can't see that side of the boat. Once out in the river I positioned the boat towards the well and let it drift down river until we could buzz in. We somehow made it in unscathed and I'm told even made it look like I knew what I was doing.

Once in the well they had four guys ready to grab our lines and position the boat in the straps. I had given them the diagrams from the manual showing how to lift and block the boat. Surprisingly they each had prints of them and were actually using them. They took a few minutes to position the boat correctly and pulled it out without any issues.

As I was talking to the guys helping I learned that they were all working Captains that drive their ferry boats in the summer months then move into yard and boat maintenance duties over the winter months. They worked together really well. Stopped asking each other questions while referring to the diagrams provided. Overall I was feeling really confident with these guys and they ended up blocking the boat exactly like the manual said.

Originally the plan was to pull the mast off first but after we arrived they had decided to pull the boat then take the mast off once the boat was in place using the hoist. The problem with this was that they could not put the mast very close to the boat due to the width of the lift. After double checking with me on the weight the team made the decision to get their cherry picker out with a small spreader bar which was used to lift both the mast and boom off the boat. This allowed them to set it right beside the boat giving them an extra twenty feet of yard space. The three of us got to work getting all of the straps off the mast that had been holding it on the boat until now. We started with getting the boom off. This went well but it wanted to spin in the wind which was frightening as Lance and I both had to duck as it came around the first time. Then we did the mast the same way but with the addition of a couple of our dock lines tied at each end of the mast with someone holding it to provide more control as it was lifted off and set down. The process while a bit scary for me went pretty smoothly considering these guys know a lot about the ferry boats they work on every day but very little about sailboats.

So at this point the boat is out of the water for the winter and ready to be winterized. They even put concrete blocks around our mast and boat to help ensure no one can accidentally drive into them. The next step is to drain the water system then run the pink stuff through everything plumbing wise including the water maker and five AC units. Once this is completed I'll change the oil, oil filters, and fuel filters for all three engines then run the blue stuff though the engines hopefully ensuring nothing in there freezes over the winter. Once that's done I have another company lined up to shrink wrap the boat. Hopefully that will help protect the boat from the ice and other elements over the winter months.

What are our thoughts so far on the new boat and did we make a good choice?

A friend asked us this question the other day and was really the first time I'd considered it. Overall from a comfort and usability perspective we really like the boat. One small challenge is that everything on it is European which seems to translate into there being very few vendors in the USA that stock many of the parts. This means small things like new locks for our deck hatches, light switches, port lights parts all have to be found at European vendors, shipped over here, and tariffs paid. Another small annoyance is that everything on the boat is metric. Generally this is not much of a problem for replacement screws or running rigging until one starts looking for things like plumbing parts or through hauls. This means that I'm either converting items to imperial or I have to order the various fittings from somewhere special. This may prove to be a good thing once we start traveling internationally with the boat but for now its a bit of a pain in the rear.

Another item I'm concerned about are all the fancy electronic gadgets. I'm a bit worried that I may not be able to service the light switches, fans, various boat pumps (bilge, gray water, fuel transfer) if the CZone system fails while at sea. While it all looks gee wiz neat at a boat show I'm less then excited about the added complexity it brings. There are other things like our electric davits. I love them for raising and lowering the dinghy but at this point I'm really not sure what the back up plan is to get the dingy out of the water if and when one or both fail. Our engines have computers in them that must be working for the engine to start or control the throttles, our steering is hydraulic what happens when the electric pump fails or we loose power. Thinking about all of this stuff makes me wish for simpler times. While none of it has failed catastrophically yet. I'm sure it will at some point during our journey around the world.

My last real gripe is that the boat is big. Yes we knew that when we bought it but after seeing so many at the boat shows and on YouTube you get a little desenstisted to it. As I've mentioned here not every marina can fit a boat our size I would guess only 1 in 5 or maybe 10 marinas can fit a boat our size in their docks as most are set up for monohauls. Even less can service or haul it due to the overall size of the boat and its components. If I were looking again I might strongly consider limiting the beam to something 24ft and under.

The good stuff the boat is very stable at sea. It is very comfortable at anchor. It really does not rock much and it takes a fairly big boat wake to feel the movement while on anchor. Ultimately all those fancy electronics are nice. Power while on board is not even a consideration. Our batteries and inverters are large enough to allow us to run our AC at night, cook, run the water maker, and do laundry all while using Starlink to surf the internet while watching TV at night. Then as long as we have a sunny day and the main sail is not making too big of a shadow the solar will have our batteries recharged by the afternoon if not we just need to run the generator for a couple hours to recharge the batteries. So far the boat has been pretty easy to work on. I have not run into inaccessible spaces or really hard to get to items. I also really appreciate a lot of the thought that has gone into the design to make the boat easy to work on and live with.

Unfortunately when it comes to actually sailing the boat I don't have much to offer or really compare it to. We have really only day sailed it a few times and other then the first leg of our trip from the Bahamas to North Caralina we really have not sailed it much. I will say its a bit boring to sail. Don't get me wrong its still amazing when you can get the engines turned off and all you hear is the water going by the haul. But unfortunately you don't feel very connected. Part of the reason is the boat does not heal so its harder to feel how it and the wind are working together. It really does become a sail by the numbers experence referring to the chart we have that says if the wind is over 20kts its time to reef the main. You really can't or at least I can't yet feel or hear when the conditions are changing. The other part that really disconnects us from the experience is the hydraulic steering. It removes the feel for how/where the rudders are and how the boat is reacting in the waves. While I had gotten used to this with our tug it still would not be my first choice for steering if I had a choice.

Overall I would say we are both pretty happy with this boat so far. Based on what is/was on the market at the time I still think we made a good choice. If I had to do it again I probably would have waited another year before buying it and I would buy one of the newer versions that are significantly lighter, have a hard top, opening front windows, maybe in boom furling, and the ability to run code sails.. Not to mention all the other little tweaks Xquisite has improved upon over the years.

Logistics

Bringing a 50ft catamaran back to the Great Lakes has been a challenge. At first I had only considered the problems of getting the boat hauled out for the winter and the difficulties I had finding a place with a lift big enough to haul a boat that is 26ft wide. I was pretty excited after calling somewhere around 50 marinas to finally find one that could do it. What I had not considered were the commercial shipyard options. I had called a couple of the ferry lines but got no's from both. Luckily a friend of a friend got us to the owner of the Jet Express ferry line and they agreed to haul the boat. This would save us over 600 miles (each way) of traveling to get the boat hauled. The next problem was what to do with the mast. After calling the various marina's around Buffalo it seemed none were equipped to put such a large mast back up. It seemed the main problem was the additional width of the boat and their cranes did not have the length or sometimes weight to allow them to extend that far. Adding to this I really wanted to get my mast on land so I could replace the halyard's, clean the rust of the rigging, pull a couple unused cables from the mast, and add a new tricolor mast light. 

As seems to more often become the case with this boat when we called Brands they told us they could take it off and put it up for us next spring. Then they saw it and because I didn't want to take the spreaders out (as I would have no idea how to retune the mast bend) this meant they didn't have a place to store it for winter. A few ideas were floated but none seemed like they were going to work out. The Jet Express guys floated doing it with a forklift, but that didn't sound like a great idea to me. After talking to them a bit more they decided they could lift it off the boat with the straps from the boat lift. This idea seemed reasonable and we put a check in the box for a plan on that item. The next problem was going to be once we had the mast off the boat how would we get it back on. In order to get to the Jet Express and Brands we had to go though a draw bridge then immediately after the bridge is a set of power lines that has a charted height of 83ft (currently not sure at what water height). Our manual says the mast height is 79ft on one page and 82ft on a different page. To make things even more exciting no one really knows if that height is accurate as a few years ago after they rehung them following a storm it seems they were not put back to that height and a sailboat took them down. This means I may have to figure out a way to transport the mast to the other side of the power lines and find a location where we can get a crane in to put it back up. But at this point that's going to have to be a problem for another day. For now I'm just going to focus on getting the boat ready for winter as at this point I don't want to make a 600 mile trek around the state in October to the other marina where I would not have had any of these problems.

How this trip though the Erie Canal was different

Historically we have been in a rush the past two times we have come through the canal. The first time we had left a 6 month old baby Max with Grandma & Grandpa while we brought the Allmond back from Sea Bright, NJ and I only had so many vacation days. That trip took 16 days. While the boat was much slower averaging around 5kts.. there were also days included for dealing with the mast while we put it up and down. We did bring it back in the springtime and would often run until the locks closed at 10pm often tieing up for the night in front of the first lock we would travel through the next morning. When we came through with the tug Annabelle was coming back from her exchange year in Denmark before we would make it home and would be staying again with her grand parents until we got there. Additionally Amy was leading a trip with their Girl Scout Troop to England that would leave four days after we arrived home. The tug moved quite a bit faster averaging around 8.5kts. We were also better at reading and planning for the tides which made it possible to ride the tide all the way up the Hudson River in one day. Looking back that trip was only 6 days. This time while we ran longer days than most people (other than delivery captains) we completed the leg from NYC to home in about 12 days. I would guess our average speed was around 7knts. 

I remember really enjoying the trip the first time. Everything was new to us the scenery was beautiful as always but we did run a lot of long days. The trip with the tug was a bit different while we enjoyed the trip it was not new, we had been through a lot of locks and bridges over the year we had been living on it making us a well oiled machine by the time we got to the canal. I don't recall the trip feeling rushed but on the other hand I think we were all about ready to end our Great Loop and get back to land life and reengaging with friends. This time I felt like we took the appropriate amount of time. We stopped in a few places to see what they offered, had a couple of rest days along the way and it was just a nice trip overall. Having done this trip three times now I don't feel like we have seen it all yet. Each time we have done this trip we have stopped at a lot of new places along the way and there are still more of those to be done. But with that said I don't think I would actively look to make the trip through the canal anytime soon and I really hope to never do it again with a mast on deck. While this time the mast was fairly easy to maneuver around it did really limit the driver’s visibility. This boat was also fairly wide and frankly we should have had three to four more fenders. In the past we had used big rubber fenders and they did a great job for us. This time we had five inflatable fenders that came with the boat and we were worried about them popping while dragging up and down the rough concrete walls of the locks so we tried using fender boards for the first time which essentially turned our five fenders into three. While the fender boards worked they introduced their own set of problems. Towards the end we stopped using them and hoped the inflatables would not pop. We got lucky in that area. I think when we leave the Great Lakes and head though the St Lawrence & Welland locks I will have a few more fenders on board and this time I will drill the fender boards differently ensuring the lines holding them don't rub against the concrete lock walls.

Day nineteen & twenty of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Tonawanda to Port Clinton, OH

We took our time leaving Tonawanda around 9:30am. The day started a bit misty and rainy as we made our way to Lake Erie. As we were getting closer to the lake our speed was falling off. This is due to the current coming in from the Lake. Buffalo is a low point on the lake and is where all the water comes in that eventually flows over Niagara Falls. Its at this point boaters have two choices.. 1. Fight the current and work your way to the Lake or 2. Enter the Black Rock Lock (a Federal lock) to avoid the current. At this point our speed was down to 4 knots (we normally run 8kts at this RPM) and we had not yet hit the strongest current. We decided to do one more lock and avoid the current. This route is interesting as when entering the lock they raise you about 26ft but this then puts you level with Lake Erie. You then travel 3.5 miles to Buffalo Harbor there is no lock to exit into the lake and you avoid the crazy amount of current in this area. The downside is the time it takes to go through the lock and wait for the two to three bridges that one may need to have opened depending on boat height. We managed to forget about the first bridge and just barely fit under it. I'm pretty sure it was the lowest bridge we went under during this entire journey. The second bridge was open when we got there and we called to have the third one open for us as I was not convinced that we would fit under it despite the operator telling me it was the same height as the first one.

When arriving at Buffalo Harbor we stopped to top up our fuel taking on about 85 gallons. It was about noon when we finally got out onto the lake. Luckily what we were seeing aligned with the weather forecast and we decided to commit to a 27 hour run across the lake. Before we could do that we had to stop the boat so I could jump in again to flip our prop into overdrive mode (a more fuel efficient mode). We had been fighting our port side prop for a while now and I'm not sure why it has not been going into overdrive mode? Our boat came with fancy Gory props that allow the blades to flip directions. Since we got to New York our port side prop had not wanted to consistently change directions. Usually this is accomplished by putting the engine into reverse then promptly shifting it into forward. When we were in the locks I think the water flowing in and past the prop was enough to get it into the correct position but it had flipped directions again when coming into the fuel dock and didn't want to go back. Luckily the water was warm and its a pretty simple thing to jump in and manually push the blades into the correct position. Once I had this corrected we were off and had a fairly uneventful overnight crossing.

We arrived in Port Clinton around 3pm. Called for one more bridge opening. Seems this bridge does not answer to the street name on the chart instead they want to be called by the name of the river. Once I figured that out they were happy to talk with me giving me their next opening. Our adventure ended at Brands Marina where we rented a dock for the next month until the Jet Express can haul us out for the winter.

The next day Amy's parents drove down to get us. Took us out to lunch and next thing we knew it we were back home again after spending the last 23 days on the boat.

Day seventeen & eighteen of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Medina to Tonawanda, NY

In the lock with the tour boat

After leaving the town of Medina we went under two more lift bridges quickly finding ourselves in Lockport and the last set of locks on the canal. When we called the lift bridge the lock master also responded on the radio. It seemed that a tour boat was getting ready to depart to give a number of customers the experience of going through the locks. Apparently there was not enough space for both of us to hold outside the lock while we waited for the locks to drain and open for passage. Once they saw that we were the larger vessel the captain decided he would wait on their wall until we passed but wanted to enter the locks first. This seemed odd but we were happy to oblige. Thankfully we had been on a roll lately and had been doing pretty well in the locks. As there is no pressure to make it look like you know what you’re doing with 50-100 tourists pointing cameras at you while attempting to grab lines and hold the boat while in the locks. Thankfully both locks went well and I don't think we will be on any dumb boating channels for this part of our adventure. 

The original flight of 5 in Lockport

After emerging from the locks we found two other boats waiting to go in. I was hoping the tour boat would clear them out of the way for us but unfortunately he was not big enough. They both seemed a bit surprised to see us coming at them and it took a few minutes for each to figure out how to get their boats out of the center of the channel and over to the side allowing us enough room to pass. Once we passed them the tour boat then proceeded to turn around infront of us to head back into the locks once again. The entire process made for a bit of an interesting puzzle as the canal is about 50ft wide in this section and we took up about 30ft of it and of course no one wants to go aground along the banks. It all worked out and no boats were damaged during the process.

We remembered Lockport as a nice town when we came through a few years ago. We were hoping to stop and possibly spend the night here but after seeing the docks again we didn't think we would fit in or if we did no one else would be able to stop so we decided to continue on.

For whatever reason there seemed to be a fair amount of debris in the canal (big logs and what not) that we had to navigate around but we enjoyed our last few hours as we traveled the last part of the canal to Tonawanda. 

We had read that Tonawanda offered a lot of space for transients and that each side of the river was operated by different marinas/organizations. It seemed one side was half the price of the other but the more expensive side was closer to local attractions. After not seeing any power or water offered on the cheaper side we opted for the more expensive side closer to town. The cost was $40 a night but it seemed they didn't actually have water. Luckily they did offer showers which was good enough for us.

We spent two nights here as we waited for favorable weather to cross Lake Erie. Last time we stopped in Tonawanda I was busy putting our mast up on the first boat while Amy & Annabelle got to explore town. This time we both got to see it. Unfortunately the Herschell Carrousel Factory/Museum was not open nor were some of the other local attractions. We could have gone to see the the local orchestra play the music to the movie Labyrinth in a really cool old theater but alas I was too cheap to buy the tickets and we decided to find ice cream and Mexican food instead.

The next day we spent mainly socializing with other boaters and the folks walking along the waterfront. We also did some more exploring of town by foot. While none of the 3-4 local museums were open we did at least walk by all of them. We also found an amazing cheesecake restaurant where we had lunch which was good but the cheesecake was better!

On our second day in Tonawanda we were lucky enough to see White Lighting go by. We knew Dustin from our Great Loop days. We had met him at the fall rendezvous in Alabama when he was just starting out as a Highfeild dealer. We actually purchased two dinghies from him and have stayed in touch over the last few years. We had heard he was going to make an attempt at the record for the fastest Great Loop and had been watching his progress over the last two weeks. We thought he would pass us in the canal but speed limits and 6pm lock closures slowed their adventure down quite a bit. He actually stopped for about 5 minutes to catch up on their way by. It was nice to be a small part of their journey and I was happy to see that they accomplished their goal of setting the new world record for fastest time of just under 13 days to travel the 4300 miles. By comparison we spent a year to travel our Great Loop which worked out to about 7000 miles. I'm pretty sure we enjoyed our slower adventure more :).

Day sixteen of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Brockport to Medina

Shortly after leaving Brockport it started raining. The rain was on and off again for a couple of hours as we navigated through a number of lift bridges. Not a big deal but just enough to get us wet. Unfortunately I never got around to waterproofing our Bimini this season so anytime we get a prolonged or heavy rain we get wet and then get to sit there getting dripped on until the canvas dries. Seems like I would learn, make the time and just put the waterproofing stuff on. We even have it on the boat with us. I just have not gotten around to getting the canvas off to spray the stuff on. Fortunately, it's only rained 4 or 5 days on this trip so it has not been too bad. 

The river and waterfalls near where we tied up

Upon arrival to Medina we learned that the canal basin we were traveling in was actually raised above the nearby river. It seemed when designing the canal the engineers could not figure out a way to work with it as part of the canal so they built the canal right over it. Seems the river flows directly under the canal then immediately over a 40ft waterfall. This was the first time we realized we went over a bridge in our boat and it was quite a big one. The resulting nearby waterfalls looked pretty epic but it seemed the engineers did not care to much about giving us a view of them. The best we could do was to find a fairly obstructed view. Needless to say reading about how they built it was pretty impressive.

We also learned that we had traveled over a road at one point and never realized it. It seems the engineers got quite creative in Medina as this is the only location along the canal where a road travels under the canal. There are some neat pictures showing the water leaking with ice forming during the winter months. The sign said that Ripley's Believe it or Not has even documented it as a unique thing. Having traveled through no less than 14 lift bridges at this point in our trip I have no idea why they chose to go over the road vs the ever popular bridge option. But I will say I'm thankful for it as each bridge that has to open for us just adds more time to our trip.

Again we have been keeping an eye on the weather over Lake Erie. It looks like we might have a nice weather window to get across the lake in 3 days so we decided to make a short day of it stopping in Medina. The guide book had good things to say about it. Unfortunately we arrived on Sunday and almost everything in town was closed. Seems the only thing that was open was the train museum, but we had assumed it was closed like everything else and missed out. We wandered around a bit, found a partial view of the waterfall then headed back to the boat for the night. While the book raved about Medina we were not that excited. It was a cute town they did provide a decent dock, free water, power and facilities but it seemed none of the businesses were open on Sundays and we were told most would be closed on Monday as well so we decided to move on the next morning.

Day fourteen & fifteen of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Bushnells Basin to Brockport

Shortly after leaving Bushnell's we arrived at our first lock that we had to wait for traffic on. Just as we were getting there eight rental canal boats had left their base and headed off on their own adventures down the canal and into their first lock. We only saw the last one go in the lock but I'll say we were pretty happy to not be sharing a lock with them as I think that guy hit at least three different rental boats as he attempted to find his spot in the lock. For those unaware these are long narrow boats. They range from 30-40ft in length and are maybe 10ft wide. They are made out of some sort of metal and are quite popular in Europe. We actually rented one many years ago in England. It was quite a fun adventure. Anyway like most boat rentals the folks renting and using the boats are generally not very experienced with the boat they are renting, often don't have much experience operating a bigger boat on the water, and frankly may not care to much about the actual boat they are on as they don't have to be the one to fix it when something happens. The upside is these are generally steel hauled boats covered in rubber rub rails and travel at about 5mph so its probably pretty hard to damage them when they run into each other, docks, locks, the banks, etc. 

Rental canal boat

The lock operator sheepishly asked if we wanted to lock though with the group of rentals but we let him know we were happy to wait. Turns out that was a fantastic idea as when we finally locked though about 40 minutes later the lock doors opened up and the first thing we saw was two of them running straight into each other with a third one driven directly into the bank. We opted to hang back for about five minutes until the two playing bumper boats figured out how to get themselves on a strait line. We each took a few deep breaths and put the boat into gear hoping they could maintain their direction. We quickly passed the one in the bank as they were figuring out which direction the tiller should be pointed as they attempted to back off the river bank. Two of the other boats headed into the first marina they got to before we caught them (at least one of them was the bumper boat guy). As we started to catch the reminder of them we would attempt to call them on the radio most answered a few were a bit scared or being passed but we attempted to reassure them they just needed to maintain the line they were on and we would easily come around them.

Amy crossing a lift bridge

We ended up arriving Brockport with three of them lined up ahead of us as it was not worth trying to pass them. After going though the first lift bridge in town they all raced for the good spots on the wall. We decided to hang back at the end of the wall giving them plenty of room to figure out docking.

The guide book claimed that Brockport is the friendliest town for boaters on the canal and they were not wrong. After helping to get the canal boats tied up we had two local volunteers checking in on us and happily giving us the scoop on the town, loaner bikes, and nearby activities. At this point we were about 2-3 travel days from Buffalo and the weather on Lake Erie was not looking great. So we decided to spend a couple days here. The docks are right at the center of town and everything here is easily walkable. We had lunch on the boat then head up for a walk though town where we found the movie theater and decided to see the new Practical Magic movie while relaxing in the Air Conditioning. On our way back to the boat we chatted up several of the canal boaters and got to tour one of their boats. They are quite practical boats and much like the one we rented more then 20yrs ago. Amy made friends with a group of ladies that were on a girls trip. I think six of them were packed into that boat but they were having a good time. Another fellow and his wife we chatted with were avid boaters until they decided to sell their fiberglass boat to purchase an old wooden Chris Craft. He has been working on it the last three years but it was still not ready for the water so they rented the canal boat to get their boating fix. Most of the rental boat crews were quite friendly and all of them wanted to see our boat so we gave a few tours. It was fun talking to the various groups.

At the top of the falls looking down into the park

The next day we headed into town for breakfast. Turns out the first place we stoped at only served breakfast by reservation. We were told that the owner only cooks for people she likes, does everything herself, and does not allow the use of cell phones. Needless to say we didn't have a reservation so we continued down the street to the local dinner. Afterward we wondered though town, Amy found the local bookstore (which was huge and quite popular). We spent and hour or two wondering though while my and my wife restocked on books. Next we decided to take advantage of the free loaner bikes to check out a local waterfall we were told was about 10 miles away. The loaner bikes were fun they both had bent rims, squeaked & groaned a lot, and the brakes even worked on one of them. We made it to the waterfall that dropped down twice then turned into a gentle river running by a park. After enjoying it for a bit we headed into the nearby town on our bikes finding the local ice cream shop. Amy decided to order their apple cider and dounght ice cream which it seemed the bees were quite fond of. Needless to say my wife does not love bees so it was quite entertaining watching her running around trying to escape the bees with her ice cream. We ended up finishing our desert in the local pizza shop away from the bee's :). We then rode our bikes back to Brockport just ahead of the rain. That night we spent sitting on the back of the boat chatting with many of the residents that were out for walks or had come down to check out our boat. It seems our boat was quite popular on the local Facebook groups as they don't get many big catamarans that look like a spaceship come though.

Lift bridges only open to about 15ft high

Before leaving the next morning we headed up to their farmers market. Picked up some fresh fruit and local honey. This was my first time running into mini water Mellons. they were about the size of a softball. Unfortunately they were quite full of seeds but they tasted great.

Lift bridge at the end of town

This is the car the lift bridge driver takes between bridges as he is responsible for opening 2 or 3 of them

Day thirteen of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Lock 25 to Bushnell Basin

We are finally starting to find a few towns along the canal. Today involved a number of lift bridges. It seems most towns have two and both are controlled by the same person. When you are within sight of the bridge one can radio for an opening. Once the bridge master is happy that you are close enough they will open the bridge. Once you have passed though they will then drive down to the next bridge while you wait and then go though the process once again. Most of these bridges are about .5-1 mile apart. There are 16 of these along the Erie Canal.

We had planned to spend the night in Fairport but when we got there no space was available. It seems that a lot of locals now treat the city walls as dock space and keep their boats there all season making it hard for boats transiting to luck into empty spots.

We kept going another few miles down the canal and found Bushnell Basin. They had a really nice public dock for $30 a night. We lucked out here. As soon as you step off the dock your immediately created by a small ice cream shop then about 200 ft to the right of that is the local brewery that happened to have live music. Needless to say we enjoyed both.

If you choose to explore more there are a couple of restaurants nearby as well as a doughnut shop and a couple of gas stations where we resupplied on milk.

Bushnell while unplanned turned out to be quite a pleasant stop and we really enjoyed our evening there talking with the locals while enjoying the live music.

Day twelve of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Lock 23 to Lock 25

Today was a humbling day. We were in one of the bigger locks and lost control of the boat. It started with us deciding that we no longer needed the ropes that we had left on our cleats to put though the cables as we had cables available for last 20 locks or so. I should mention that we have ratchet straps attached to most of our cleats helping to hold our mast in place so adding a dock line on there takes up more room and is slightly inconvenient and time consuming to get into place. Since coming though the flight of 5 all of the locks had lines hanging down the wall. We would generally pull up to the wall then grab a line for each end of the boat. If we were lucky those lines would be long enough to sort of get on a cleat and we would tighten those up as the boat rose in the lock. If we did not keep those tight the boat would/could drift over to the otherside of the lock and of course we didn't have any fenders on that side of the boat so it would be a bad thing for our gelcoat. So long story short we removed the lines we had not been using only to pull into the first lock that now required them. Luckily we had simply hung them on our rail rather then actually putting them into a locker somewhere but in the time it took to get them back on the cleats and around the racket straps a strong wind came in and blew the boat over to the other side of the lock and of course this was the only lock where you had to use the wall on the port side of the boat because the other one was missing really large chunks of concrete. Well needless to stay we sustained some damage before we could get a couple of fenders moved over to protect the boat. As we started to get blown over I attempted to control the boat from the helm but suspect I was to afraid to give the boat the power it needed to fight the wind and move back over before hitting the wall. After we were pushed up against the wall we did finally get a couple fenders in place which allowed me to reverse the port engine to get the bow of the boat off the wall and moved back to the other side. Of course as we are doing this the lock master is calling us asking what we are doing and letting us know that she now has another boat waiting to lock though. I'm sure the entire event took less then 10 minutes from start to recovery but it felt like a really long time in the moment. Once we made our way back over to the correct side of the lock we ran our lines though the steel cables and didn't remove them again for rest of the trip. Side note the opportunity to use them was not available but we kept them on anyway. 

Other than this humbling experience the day was fairly uneventful. Most our time was spent traveling though no wake zones and I think we only made 40 miles or so of progress.

When arriving at lock 25 we asked about spending the night on his wall. He was happy to have us as he was only there for another 45minutes or so before it was time to close the lock and head home for the night. He invited us up for a tour so we took him up on it. I will say you can tell a difference in the supervisors priorities between sections of the canal. Everything in this section of locks was clean, well polished, and perfectly maintained down to the flowers along the lock wall. This lock master was proud of his job and his lock. When he opened the control panel showing us how the mechnisiams worked all of the switches were polished the wood was nicely varnished and the wiring was neat (he showed us both sides). Next he took us around the lock explaining how and where the water flowed, how the weights worked that opened the water gates, and then how the doors operated. We ended in his shop which used to be where the electric motors were that ran the lock. Again everything was highly polished and cared for. It was interesting to hear about his day to day duties, the amount of traffic he saw, and what they do in the winter months when the canal is closed. I had heard that the canal is drained in the winter but seems that is not the case for this section at least. He said they do a lot of preventive maintenance during the winters and that at least one lock gets its walls rebuilt each year. Even with that it seems that most of the lock workings are still much the same as they were 100 years ago. It really is impressive how these have stood the test of time and how well maintained New York keeps these without charging any fees. While I imaging these are a major expense in their operations budget I would question if that is recovered in the amount of tourist traffic the canal generates. While clearly well used by cyclists and recreational boaters the Lock Master said he only sees 2-3 commercial boats come though a year transporting various items... But without these access to the Great Lakes would be limited to the St Lawrence and the Mississippi River system adding possibly several thousand miles to a lot of recreational boaters trips to Florida each year should this system not be available.

After our tour we went back to the boat for dinner and another quiet night on a lock wall.

Day eleven of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Lock 20 to Lock 23

Today was a shorter day. We left lock 20 around 9am but decided we needed a break and stopped after 23 around 2. The lock master had told us there were a couple of restaurants within walking distance and the park at this lock wall seemed a bit bigger and well used by the locals. We tied up. I went for a walk just needing to get off the boat for a while. Later that night we walked into town to check out the pizza place that was recommended by several of the local fishermen. Unfortunately it seemed that all three of the local restaurants were closed due to the holiday weekend. I guess the locals here don't want to eat out on Labor Day?

It ended up being a nice, quiet day. We both caught up on some screen time, got some exercise, and enjoyed the short day on the water. 

Day ten of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - St. Johnsonville, NY to Lock 20

After a late night with our new found friends we left first thing in the morning ensuring that we could do the first lock though of the morning for Lock 16. It seems they have been having some erosion problems between lock 16 & 17. To address this someone decided to only allow boats to pass though every two hours. They are also strictly enforcing a no wake speed limit. So if you show up at the next lock early you will be penalized and have to wait for the next opening two hours later. Of course their are stories about boaters really pissing off the lock keepers which have the power to hold you all day if they feel like it. Being a sailboat we pretty much only travel at a no wake speed so arriving early was not much of an option for us.

By this point in the canal the locks were becoming fairly spaced out. We did go through the unique one where the lock door actually lifts up. They call it the guillotine it is the biggest lift on the canal. Lock 17 is significant for several reasons. Completed in 1916, it was considered an engineering marvel. With a 40.5 foot drop or lift, it is the highest lock on the Erie Canal system. But what makes it really special, at least in my mind, is the enormous guillotine style lock gate. Suspended by what looks like giant bicycle chains, the gate is lifted and lowered with the aid of a concrete counterweight. You can see the counterweight descending  When full, the lock holds 6 million gallons of water and that water really rushes out when the valves are opened! I should mention here that the other end of the lock chamber has standard mitre gates. By this point in the adventure its fun to see something different but it does drip on you as one goes under it.

We only made it though 4 locks today but they were quite spaced out. I'm not sure how many miles we traveled but we did use most the daylight hours available to us before stopping at Lock 20 for the night.

Each of the locks are generally part of a nice park. Often we would run into a number of bikers riding along the canal and camping along the way. Each park generally offers a place to tie up, walk around a bit, and a port a poddy. There is generally no power or water available. From time to time one gets lucky and they are within walking distance of a town. Unfortunately that was not the case here so we tied up, went for a walk then came back made dinner, watched a movie and went to bed.

Day nine of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Troy, NY to St. Johnsonville, NY

This morning we woke up had breakfast and decided to head up to the state’s largest farmers market in Troy. They were not kidding the market was huge and even sorted by street and vendor. Clothing/neckless/cute stuff vendors were all on one road. Hot food was all in the center within a traffic circle area, fresh produce was on a different street, and fresh made items like bread, honey, peanut butter were all on yet another street. It took at least two hours to walk the market. I am generally terrible at these things as when I find something unique food wise I always want to try it. We did pretty well limiting our purchase's to fresh bread, home made brownie peanut butter, some fruit, and fresh pesto. Amy had a fresh desert crape and I found the special cake that was supposed to change my life (per last nights ice cream guy). The cake was a lot like pineapple upside down cake but with 3-4 kinds of alcohol in it. Strangely it didn't taste like alcohol but you did need to be over 21 to buy it. Unfortunately while it was good, it was not something I would get again or even recommend to anyone else. Guess the guy at the ice cream stores good taste buds were limited to frozen concoctions. 

It was about noon before we pushed off the dock and headed into the first set of locks. Per the guidebook all the locks were at least 150ft long and 45ft wide. It seems some are only 40ft. The 40ft locks felt really small our first few days with our boat being 26ft wide plus about 2ft of fenders hanging over it felt quite tight driving into them. The first few locks had long cables hanging down that are attached at both the top and bottom of the wall. This made it quite easy to put a line though and attach to back on the boat. When going up in the lock I could occasionally put the starboard engine into gear and the boat would pull the line and snug right up to the wall. Then we got to the next five locks which are creatively called the flight of five. These have ropes hanging from the top. Some of the ropes are longer then others which meant sometimes we could get one around a cleat then pull it tight as the boat rose in the lock. Other times we had to hold the line until the boat came up enough to get it around a cleat which generally meant the boat would float over to the other side of the lock. For this trip we only had five fenders. All of them were about 3.5ft long and 18 inches wide (quite big). Because they were inflatable I had thought fender boards might be a good way to protect them against the walls as I was worried they might snag something and pop. Using fender boards meant that you needed two fenders for each fender board and that our set up would be quite time consuming to move from one side of the boat to the other and that all our fenders would be on one side. Meaning if we drifted over there was nothing to keep that side of the boat from rubbing the concrete wall.

The first two locks in the flight of five went ok. The dock lines were long enough to get on a cleat. The next two were challenging but we did ok. Lock five went pretty well. We were feeling good and thought we had a system in place. Of course that's when everything falls apart. With our past boats they were light enough we could pull them over or if they drifted out it was not a big deal as they were no where near the other wall. We quickly found out that we were no match for the weight of this boat especially when we had to work against the wind and water flow. We drifted over almost rubbing the wall. The next lock we did drift over and hit the wall leaving a little bit of gel coat behind from our rear sponson as we could not keep the lines tight enough on the cleats. After those two the next couple of locks went pretty well.

We ended the day after lock 15 as lock 16 had limited hours only opening every two hours for traffic. We pulled into the St. Johnsonville Marina and Camp Ground for the night. I'm pretty sure we stayed here during our first trip through the canal 16yrs ago. I still recall the marina convincing us to head to a local Italian restaurant and packed eight of us into an old 80's Cadillac they were using as a curtesy car. Anyway.. Once we were tied up some ladies came over to check out our boat. Amy gave them tours while I paid. It seemed they had their campers here and had seen us on the water while exploring in their pontoon boat. After making some dinner we headed over to their campsite for dessert and made some new friends. They all had their big dogs with them and it was nice to be around their furry four legged children while hearing about their adventures and sharing the campfire for the night.

Day eight of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Kington, NY to Troy, NY

Last time we did this trip with the tug we were able or maybe just motivated to travel from the Statue of Liberty all the way to Catskill in just one day. We are now essentially on day 3 of going the same distance  motoring up the river with the catamaran. Last time we had timed the tide perfectly to push us all day additionally helped by the fact the tug travels about 2kts faster than this boat and seemingly they both burn about the same amount of fuel.

We had planned to be moving about 730 this morning but woke up to a rain shower and it felt good to roll over for an extra hour of sleep. By 830 the rain was gone but it was still quite foggy. We weighed anchor and continued our trek north.

We had the tide with us for the first 3hrs or so after that we were fighting it rest of the day. This day going up the river was much like the other two passing beautiful Mansions on the river banks, neat old light houses, and the occasional train along the way.

After about 53 miles we decided to stop in Troy for the night. Originally we had planned to stay at the Erie Canal visitors center but when we called, it seemed their space was somewhat limited for a 70ft boat and the Dock Master convinced us that Troy was the place to be. Troy was also our first fuel stop. At this point in the trip our tanks were just under 50%. I think we took on about 120 gallons thinking this should be plenty to get us through the entire Erie Canal and probably back to the west side of Lake Erie.

Once tied up we met some folks that were just coming out of the locks having spent their summer going through the Canadian locks & the Georgian Bay. It was nice to hear about their trip which is still one we would like to do one day and had planned to do with the tug but decided to push up the circumnavigation plans instead. Thinking the other trip would be easier later than sailing around the world as we continue to get older. After a week or so it was nice to get to talk with some other boaters and Troy did turn out to be a nice stop. That night we decided to relive our first trip up the river when we stopped here for fuel and lunch at Browns Brewing. Dinner was good. Afterwards we took a walk finding a remarkable ice cream place called the Dutch Utter that is now in my top 5 favorites. We met the owner, he easily translated his passion for creating new flavors and was really into what he does. He also told us that we could not miss the farmers market the next day where I needed to seek out some cake that would be life changing.