Mike joined me yesterday as planned, and we set out from Peterborough at 0900 and stopped at the bottom of Buckhorn Lock about 1800. Nice day, relaxed travel. These pics were taken by Mike, and there are some shots of Escapade taken in Trenton by another looper.
I got the thruster working shortly after my last post. It was a burned connection on a ground cable. I got underway Thursday and arrived here yesterday. No drama, chugging along at my river speed of about 6 mph.
Tomorrow my friend Mike arrives. He’ll do the rest of the trip to Wiarton. Mike was aboard for our inaugural voyage in Escapade almost 4 years ago.
The Kawartha Voyager came through down bound earlier. Looked empty.
I’m tied up at the first lock in Trenton. Next up is the Trent Severn, which I’ve done many times.
I’ve been on and off the boat the last couple of weeks. One of my missions was to fix the bow thruster before going any further. So I pulled the motor, and had a motor repair shop do a rebuild. It was ready on Tuesday, and I picked it up and installed it, but it still doesn’t work.
At that point I needed water and a pump out, so headed down to Kingston, then on to here. I’ve got my motorcycle on deck.
I’ll pull the motor again tonight and have a few things to check, otherwise it’s back to the shop.
My goal is to be in Wiarton by July 3, two weeks from now. Hopefully I can get the thruster sorted soon.
I don’t have any interesting new pictures apart from the hat, which I splurged on in Kingston. It’s my first Tilley. I’ve tried lots of alternatives, and had a Goretex OP hat that I was very fond of, but it was lost at sea in the Bahamas.
If any adventurous souls want to join me for all or part of the trip up to Georgian Bay drop me a note. I have no scheduled visitors.
I was in Guelph on the weekend racing our Snipe with Sarah at GLBC. The racing was great. Short course windward leeward, twice around. Each race took about 15 minutes, with a three minute countdown for each race. The series was 12 races over 2 days.
We’ve done a few regattas together, and this was our best yet. It was hard sailing, with gusty shifty winds, but our boat handling and speed felt pretty good, and we had good communication and teamwork. Much better than our bumbling and fumbling from a couple of years ago. We’re not quite in the top tier, but not far off the pace. The Snipe is a fun boat. Easy to sail and forgiving but very tweakable and reasonably athletic.
The Canadian Championship is in Wiarton in four weeks. I’m going to get Escapade up there by then, and we’re going to race in that regatta as well.
I’m back at Lower Brewer’s. Haven’t gone very far… It’s lovely through here.
Samantha and Sarah joined me for a couple of days and we made it up to Jones Falls, then turned around. Poked all the way into Dog Lake.
I’m tackling a few maintenance items this week, then racing Snipe this weekend. Will be back underway next week with my motorcycle on deck, heading back to Kingston and towards Lake Huron.
I’ve completed another Loop, and have been compiling some stats and approximate costs. This covers about 13 months, from leaving Toronto in early May last year until arriving back in Lake Ontario last week.
Distance traveled: 8,171 miles / 13,150 km
Engine hours: 1,215
Fuel: 6,424 l / 1,697 gal $10,800
Insurance: $1,600
Charts: $400
Dockage/lockage/customs fees: $2,100
Maintenance/repairs: $1,600
Transportation to/from boat: $600
New outboard: $4,500
Total:CDN$21,600
The boat performed well. The biggest failure was losing the bow thruster in the Bahamas. That’s still unresolved. Apart from that I replaced the macerator pump and an impeller after failure, and had some frustrations/glitches with my MFD. No other noteworthy issues.
I haven’t hauled the boat in almost two years, but the bottom is clean and I’ve managed to avoid major underwater damage.
Major stops included Wiarton, Chicago and Memphis. The boat was stopped in each of those places for a few weeks. Apart from that I was mostly on the move.
Incidents/accidents: I have two new significant scars on the topsides, one from a bad docking attempt on a concrete pier in Collins Bay, and one from hitting a channel marker in Florida while briefly away from the helm. Both on me. I’ve bumped hard bottom two or three times, but don’t believe I’ve done any damage.
Update June 11: I’ve had the thruster motor rebuilt, $1,700. Add that to the total.
Boating Adventures 