We got a call for the Canal people at 0700 asking about the water situation at our location. They managed to bring the water depth up about a foot overnight (10 mile stretch) and requested we make another attempt at getting over the gravel bar before marshaling any other resources. We were underway a few minutes later and cleared yesterday’s problem area.
We were informed that one of their deep draft tugs grounded at Woods Creek, before Sylvan Beach and that there was no way to get past that area until dredging was performed. In other words it was the terminal wall in Rome or bust.
Just past one of the maintenance areas we came to a necked down area in the channel east of where there was some dredging going on and grounded again. Calling our canal contact he said there was going to be a tug going our direction and to follow him. We raised our keel up about four inches to reduce our draft a bit, followed him and basically powered through the low spot that appeared to be a few boat lengths long. You could hear the gravel grating against the keel as we went along. It will be interesting to see how much paint is left on the keel this fall when the boat gets hauled. It is not something we would have done if we were “alone” but if we truly got stuck in that narrow spot we had help nearby and they couldn’t have left us there as we would have blocked the channel.
One past there we ended up slowing numerous times (slower than the slow pace we were going) to pick our way through the shallow spots. We only bumped hard one other place.
Finally making it to Rome we tied up and secured the boat the best we could before getting a rental car and heading for Erie.
At the dock in Rome.
The dredging operation will probably take a few weeks after which we will come back to Rome and continue the journey west.
Bill has a list of thing we need upon our return, the top of the list being the magic Penguin control for the main saloon AC unit and cockpit cushions.
Bill the owner, looking like a beaten man in the fog of the early morning. Once the caffeine kicked in he bounced back, ready to take on the world, or at least the Erie Canal.
This morning one of the water way supervisors showed up with enhanced sonar images of problem spots in the canal between lock 19 and Lake Oneida. He indicated that his work boats can get through the shallow areas but they are steel tugs with lots of horsepower that make their own channel if necessary.
With this information in hand we gave it the old college try. It appears we better transfer schools as we didn’t get very far.
Lock 19 is in the lower right corner, a creek that fills the canal with sediment (gravel) every year is just above the lock. We got around that bad spot but grounded out where the arrow is. We poked around looking for a path through but found non and returned to the dock.
The reality is that this survey was conducted on May 4th and the pool level is down about a foot from when this was done. Were the depth was shown to be 7 to 8 we were finding about 7 maximum and since we draw 8′ we weren’t going to get through.
If we did make it we could probably get to Rome which is between locks 20 and 21, lock 20 being 10 miles west of us at the moment.
Unfortunately that wouldn’t be the end of our problems because between lock 22 and Lake Onieda is a real shallow spot at Wood Creek.
At Wood Creek the shoaling extends all the way across the canal with depths of 6 to 7 feet.
They have started dredging operations from the west but are hampered by regulations prohibiting dredging during the fish mating season (which is now). In theory they might get a dredge to this location by mid June but not to hold your breath.
We decided to leave the boat at lock 19 for the duration and rent a car to get to Erie as it seemed obvious that we weren’t going anywhere. You need permission from Utica to leave a boat on a lock wall but they really don’t want us here for a bunch of reasons.
The Canal authority gave us two choices. Either we could turn around and go back to the Ilion Marina to leave the boat (not an option, we were just there and there isn’t enough water), go to Little Falls (no guarantee they have enough water) go to St. Johnsville (we were also there with not enough water) OR wait until tomorrow.
By tomorrow they claim they will be able to raise the water level about a foot over normal pool (we are about a foot under normal pool). The tug Roosevelt, which draws 9′ is scheduled to come up here tomorrow morning to pick up a barge. We can follow him back west and if he is going far enough we might be able to get past the shallow spot west of lock 22 in his tracks. If not then we will be leaving the boat at Rome on the terminal wall where Liberty has stayed before.
We are hoping he needs to get to Sylvan Beach so we can attempt the spot at Woods Creek. There are also shallows leading out into Lake Onieda but there is TowboatUS service there 🙂 An interesting point is that if you get stuck in the canal and are in the channel impeding traffic the canal will tow you with one of their work boats (after you get about 10 different permissions). However, they won’t tow you forward, just backwards the way you came.
After a long, hot day at the lock we had dinner at the local restaurant that had no air conditioning. Good food but it wasn’t the cool oasis we hoped for.
I will save you the suspense, we are stuck at lock 19 east of Utica on the Erie Canal. Less than about 300 yards from the exit of lock 19 the canal appears to be about 7 feet deep and we need 8.
Leaving lock 13 at 0730 we began our plod westward. It is interesting that when you are cruising you don’t pay a lot of attention to miles traveled because if someplace strikes your interest you stop and investigate. When you are on a boat delivery you are just trying to make miles and at the end of the day it always depressing to see how few miles were covered during the day.
Cruising west on the canal we are paralleling I-90. The cars and trucks going by are probably thinking that those characters on that sailboat are really living the good life and they might be wishing they were out here with us. Little do they know….
Fuel stops are far and few between on the canal and St. Johnsville Municipal Marina has the cheapest fuel on the canal. Supposedly they have ten feet of depth (published) on the fuel dock but we think otherwise. When we initially got here there was no attendant, evidently she went up to watch the local Memorial Day parade. We tried to dock and struggled to get the boat close to the dock. It took a few minutes to figure out why (we were aground). Skipper Bill came up with a plan where we would angle into the dock and when we were close enough to climb off the bow we would drop the keel down into the mud to essentially anchor us. It worked like a charm and we were able to snake the fuel hose aboard to top off our tanks. As a matter of fact, the fuel attendant lady said there was only six feet right along the wall. We were able to extradite ourselves from this location and continue our slog west, slowing down when we thought the water was becoming a little too skinny for our liking.
Aground so to speak while taking on fuel. I obviously need to make a notation on Active Captain about the depth of water at their fuel dock.
We later lightly bumped the bottom one-half mile north of lock E17, bumped hard at the Main Street Bridge in Herkimer (for no obvious reason), tried to get into Ilion Marina (they have rest rooms, pump out facilities and showers) to no avail. Again, the published data says they have ten feet of depth at their docks, their fuel dock attendant claims they have eight feet but we couldn’t get anywhere even close to their dock before running aground. So, no showers for the Entrada crew.
Rick “caught” a small toad on his lock line in one of the locks today.
Inside of Lock 17 facing east, the highest lift lock on the canal at 40 feet.
Westbound view in Lock 17, In this lock all boats have to be on the south side regardless of the direction you are traveling.
We had to bypass Little Falls, one of Liberty’s favorite stops on the eastern portion of the canal as it was too early to quit for the day, this being a boat delivery. We will be by next May in Liberty on our “fairwell tour”.
Further west we plowed through a shallow spot one mile east of lock 19 and eventually came to a screeching halt just to the west of lock 19. Just before we got to the lock two big power boats (one in the 70 foot range) came up behind us and we let them pass to get into the lock first. The lock tender was having issues with some valves and requested that we all rig for a port side lockage (starboard side is generally the norm) which we did. Coming out of the lock they had less than forty minutes to get to the next lock before it closed for the evening so once out of the lock they hustled west but quickly slowed down as they found the shallow water that snared us. They radioed back that they had no water under them so it was no surprise the we couldn’t get past and although we stuck the keel in the bottom and were fortunate to be able to back our way out after raising the keel the eight inches that we had lowered it for just such an occasion.
It was a good thing we let the power boats into the lock first because if we were leading the parade out and stuck it the boats behind might not have been able to stop. That could have been really ugly.
Our plotter bread crumb track coming out of Lock 19.
After raising the keel 8″ and backing off the shallow spot we docked on the outer lock wall.
Once safely docked we went to talk to the lock master, a young man who has been running the lock for a little over a year. As he was low man on the totem pole he had to work today (Memorial Day) and there was no maintenance crew around. He told us they did dredging in this portion of the canal last year and the dredges were at it for weeks on end. Evidently they might have missed a spot or two but spring rains have effected the canals depth. He put in a call to his supervisor to advise him of the situation and was told that a crew would be down in the morning. We will see how that turns out.
We were informed that a “new” bar and restaurant opened just down the road from us. It turned out to be closed due to the holiday weekend.
We wouldn’t have been so disappointed except for the fact that there not one but two open signs in front. As a matter of fact they even had an electric open sign in the window. It wasn’t open.
You can see that the water level seems to be quite a bit lower than normal by the scum line. We found this odd as upstate NY appeared to be getting quite a bit of rain recently.
At the dock we heard a strange sound emitting from the keel box. As we hadn’t seen the components that raised and lowered the keel, this seemed like a good time to investigate. After taking off the deck cover we were able to see the massive hydraulic cylinder that fits into a recess in the keel that simply raises and lower it. The sound appears to be noise the is resonating into the keel from another location.
The cylinder is simply hung off of a massive pin.
The next order of business, while the burgers for dinner were cooking was to investigate the non-functioning cockpit table. This table is raised vie pressurized air. It turns out to raise the table you need to turn the compressor on with a switch located under the saloon in the engine room. You then have to turn the ignition switch (on the Yanmar panel for the main engine in the cockpit) to on before moving the toggle switch to the up position which controls the table. The table then comes up out of the floor. If somebody hadn’t mistakenly left the engine key switch on when we were fussing with the keel we wouldn’t have found the solution for quite a while. Click on the picture below to view a YouTube video of the table in “action”.
Today: Six partial or full groundings, 36 nm (the problem yesterday was converting from nm to statute miles), seven locks. Total 453 nm. We “fixed” the distances as we deal in nm where all the publications for the canal has distances in statute. The chart plotter still ignores any any data unless the boat is moving faster than .3 knots.
I am not sure why the crew has been in the rack since 2130 and now it is 2300 and I am still up typing. Time for this guy to turn in.
We were up at 0530, went to the breakfast place in Waterford at 0600 and underway to lock 2 at 0700. We went through the first five locks with a large SeaRay powerboat in about an hour and forty five minutes at which time the SeaRay left us in the dust.
Waiting in the lock in one of the locks outside of Waterford before the rain started.
There are two guard gates above the first five locks. This is what happens if you aren’t paying attention and have a fast power boat after exiting; you run aground. What is odd is that the boat is pointing directly at the island of vegetation. One would think that isn’t the direction you should be going. BoatUS doesn’t have any towing service here so I wonder how he is going to get dragged back into the channel.
This is how we spent about five hours today, wearing foul weather gear in an exposed cockpit. I mentioned to Bill that my gear was virtually new even though it was about nine years old. He asked how was that? Because I spend most of my time warm, dry and comfortable in a pilot house!
We made lock 13 with a few minutes to spare although it really wasn’t an issue. The gal operating lock 12 said that she would gladly come up to 13 and let us through if we ran a few minutes past closing time (1700) if necessary. Actually she said she needed to come up there to check water levels so it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience. Now we are docked on the west side of lock 13, right at the I90 Welcome Center (with no power) we had dinner on the boat; lasagna and salad preceded by cheese and crackers with your choice of an adult beverage or two.
The latest project. The sound system plays CD’s, we just can’t get the sound to come out of any of the speakers.
Another issue is the daily log kept by the chart plotter. It claimed we only did 44 nm today, which is incorrect and our total was 417 which was really wrong. The data was correct yesterday, so what has changed? Another mystery to solve.
Today we lowered the keel eight inches. Tomorrow we enter a stretch (actually a 70 mile stretch) of the canal where the governing depth is eight feet instead of the normal fourteen feet due to spring runoff. We normally draw eight feet with the keel up. We figure with the keel down a bit that if we hit we can raise the keel up and back off. The plan is to motor through this area at five knots instead of seven. It will take an extra two hours/day at this rate but running aground at seven knots ends up being really slow. Actually, we are hoping that eight foot governing depth is closer to nine feet and the eight foot number is conservative. We will see.
Today: 57 nm in 10 engine hours, 12 locks. Total 450 miles.
Departure time was 0630 from our dock in Kingston. We turned north on the Hudson and immediately ran into an adverse current but it was expected. As we worked our way up river, the tidal current effect begins to diminish so we only slowed by about a knot and a half. Slack current was at 0930 and after that we were able to pick up about a shy knot of speed for a few hours before approaching Albany. The day was rather warm with 88 degree temperatures and the wind was southerly at about seven or eight knots meaning there was no apparent wind across the deck. The highlight of the morning was bacon, potatoes and eggs as we churned our way north.
Rick keeping lookout in the bow for logs and other river debris. We managed to nail a eight inch diameter log coming out of NY harbor but have hit nothing substantial since.
The chart plotter is mounted about seven feet in front of the wheels making it difficult to do any zooming or panning of the screen. Even just seeing the screen is difficult at times. The location is fine for open water sailing, not quite so good if you are trying to stay in a channel in confined waters.
They do have interesting aids to navigation on the river.
As we passed through Albany we came across Real Mountie, one of our Canadian Pilgrim friends. His dinghy was not on the boat deck and there was no response on the VHF. The boat is kept on Lake Champlain so he is not far from home.
Locking through the Federal Lock at Troy at the end of a fairly long day. The sun has taken it’s toll on the crew, they look beat.
As we got close to Waterford we checked the live web cams at the Welcome Center and were pleasantly suprised to find that the dock had lots of space still available. We thought this was rather odd, it being a holiday weekend.
The Welcome Center dock looking towards Lock 2 on our arrival.
The Welcome Center dock looking east. We are in front of the small tug on the end.
Arriving at 1400, the first order of business after checking in and paying our $10 for power (free dockage) was to troop over to the laundromat as we were all short of clean clothes. After starting three loads we walked across the street to McGreivey’s for a drink while the machines did their thing. McGreivey’s bills itself as an upscale place. Unfortunately it is upscale for Waterford, a community struggling to survive. We found it to be “medium scale”. The food was very good and the prices more than reasonable. It turns out that in our haste to find a place to cool our heels that one of the washers wasn’t started and one wasn’t even fed any quarters. Since we really were in no hurry this wasn’t an issue as the laundry got washed and dried while we ate and drank.
After dinner we collected our clothes and headed back to the boat before Bill and Dave headed for the grocery store and Rick to the liquor store. Cas was smart enough to stay behind and take a shower. The grocery store lets you take a cart back to the Welcome Center (they have to unlock the wheels so it can get off the property). We are not sure how we ended up with a full cart as there was only six items on our shopping list. They come by every few days to pick up the empty carts.
Captain Bill doing his homeless person impression pushing a grocery cart across the bridge that crosses the Hudson.
The dock was pretty much full by evening, there was still one space available on the west dock. Fortunately, a pretty uneventful day.
This is how the recording secretary spends part of his evening, staring at a computer screen. It looks like he could use a haircut.
Today 57nm, 7-1/2 engine hours. Total distance 393 miles.
Departure from Half Moon Bay was 0700 and the current was such that it pushed us up the Hudson for a good part of the trip. Boat speed hovered in the upper eight knot range to nine knots for hour after hour.
About seven miles up from Haverstraw Bay we came to the Bear Mountain Bridge. Off to the west of the bridge is a little cove where we anchored Liberty on May 11, 2015 on one of our trips north. I am not sure why we would have picked this spot rather than Haverstraw Cove except that it is about an hour north. Maybe we were trying to make tracks north.
Bear Mountain Bridge
A bit further north is West Point, always a pretty sight on a warm, cloudless day.
As we came up Rondout Creek in Kingston we passed our old “friends” at Ole Savannah Restaurant. There was nobody at the dock but we aren’t sure there would be enough water for us. Besides, we really need shore power and had already made reservations at the Hudson River Maritime Museum that is right next door.
Getting fuel at Rondout Yacht Basin
Bill was able to contact the guy who did the main cabin AC work. They couldn’t test the unit after they performed the service as the AC requires 220v and the boat wasn’t in the water nor near any suitable outlets. Evidently he was supposed to have been contacted when the boat was launched to verify that everything was working but that never happened. He seemed to be a consciousness guy and would have come to the boat except for the fact we are no longer in Annapolis. Trouble shooting the possible causes over the phone ended up in him determining that the display that controls the unit was incorrect. We need the one with the “penguin” on it. While he offered to ship one to us, there is no real place that we can guarantee that we will be and with the holiday weekend, who knows how long it might take to get anywhere. At least we know we cannot fix the problem. We will just have to sweat it out so to speak.
After we spent about an hour on the AC issue we went though the Museum, this time we got in for free as it is included in the $2/foot dock fee. Saved $7 each! 🙂
The museum hasn’t changed much since the last time we were here but we always find something interesting we hadn’t noticed before.
Then it was time for dinner so it was off to Ole Savannah where I had the half rack of ribs which is highly uncharacteristic of me. I spoke to the owner after dinner and he remembered me as his first customer from a number of years ago. The food was great, the service good and the place was busy. He said he will be sticking around for awhile as he has a twenty year lease on the property. I wished him well and told him we will be by with Liberty next spring.
Dinner at Ole Savannah
The half rack of ribs would feed two.
With dinner over it was back to Entrada for an after dinner drink and some more chores. I cleaned up some lines that were growing cow’s tails while Bill attempted to remove the vinyl letters on the transom. The removal didn’t go well at all as those letters have been on there since 2002. He is going to have to order some magic goo to restore the vinyl in order to get them off.
The cockpit table is raised from the cockpit sole with air pressure from a tank located under the cockpit. It didn’t want to move. Pressure builds up in the tank but the table doesn’t budge. This is a job for another day.
The compressor and tank for raising the table.
There are fancy 12v fans in the after cabin that have been giving us fits. Some days they work, others they don’t. When they arn’t working correctly they start up, run for about 10 seconds and then shut off. Sometimes spinning the fan blades restarts them, other times it doesn’t. The blue lights that indicate how long they will remain on, two, four, six or eight hours then acts like a strobe, blinking every fifteen seconds even though the fan isn’t turning. Of course the cabins are quite warm and we have no AC. I took (my) fan from the saloon and put it in my stateroom for the night. I will give it up during the day. Another problem to work on in our spare time. The odd thing was that when we were motoring today the fans worked perfectly. Maybe it is a low voltage issue of some sort.
These are real nice fans, when they are working.
We will be arriving in Waterford tomorrow, a Saturday afternoon on Memorial Day weekend. Terrific timing on our part. Hopefully we can get a spot on the wall as we really need to re provision the boat and there is a grocery store near by. The wooden boat Onrust is docked right in front of us. Maybe we can find out if they are going to Waterford tomorrow and if not we might be able to use their reserved spot for the evening. Wish us luck.
Today, 48 nm in seven hours including the half hour we spent going a few knots while we ate lunch before coming up the creek. Total miles 336 nm using 77 gallons of diesel. There are 48 engine hours total which works out to 4.4 nmpg or 1.6 gph. As a point of reference Liberty burns 1.7 gph at cruise so obviously this boat with a longer water line and 10,000 lbs more displacement has a more efficient hull shape. We believe Entrada’s cruising speed to be between 7.5 and 8 knots.
Once again the day started early at 0630. We had miles to go and knew we were going to be fighting an adverse current most of the way.
Bill, the skipper searching for the Statue of Liberty.
Heading though the upper bay the Coast Guard paid us a visit and strongly suggested we stay 500 yards away from the Staten Island Ferries as they were running their routes. Our speed through the harbor was in the neighborhood of 5.5 knots and it was going to get slower.
The advantage of having the current against you is that you have more time to check out the sights. As they say, the Manhattan skyline looms majestically over the Hudson.
As we approached the George Washington Bridge, I went down below to take a nap. When I went back up on deck I assumed that I missed seeing the bridge until I turned around. The bridge was not far behind us.
Going slow up the Hudson. Actually, our boat speed dropped to 4 knots at one point.
The George Washington Bridge off our stern.
We know nothing about this boat that was anchored off to the side of the river. We wonder if he didn’t want to pay for a dock (unlikely) or if he simply couldn’t find one big enough.
The Palisades on the west bank of the river. They are always worth a picture.
Further north is the Tappan Zee Bridge. The new bridge is finally finished and carrying traffic. You can see them starting to dismantle the old bridge in the background.
The owner trying to make himself more comfortable at the wheel. The added benefit is that it is easier to see. Maybe he is second guessing his decision to have not left the cockpit cushions aboard the boat.
After slogging up current for almost nine hours and being able to motor in slack water for a little over an hour we arrived at the Half Moon Bay Marina. It actually is a pretty nice facility directly across the river from Haverstraw Bay, the place were Liberty always anchors when going up and down the Hudson.
Although we probably could have stayed inside the break wall, since it was going to be a quiet night, they had us dock on the outside due to our draft.
Success at last. This picture shows that we finally have the 24v charging system functioning meaning that we can run the inverter and all the good things that come with that while motoring.
This turned out to be the culprit, a terminal where a wire was broken on the alternator. There were a number of loose wires in the engine compartment. Some wires had broken ends and some were simply laying disconnected from three different relays. What made this job so difficult, besides the access issue, was knowing what was actually required and what was left over from some previous component installation and never removed.
Another “temporary” addition to the saloon is a fan to move some air around. Since the AC is still not working (maybe we will get into it tomorrow), some of us wanted a fan. This fan will be moved to Freedom when we reach Erie as the owner is very particular about fans and evidently this one doesn’t meet his standards. It was all the local drugstore had on its shelves and that was good enough for some of us. 🙂
After our work was done we did the shower thing (not aboard the boat as the water tanks and water heater still have pink anti freeze in them) we headed out for dinner at The Tavern at Croton Landing. The dockmaster recommended it and the food was excellent.
Dusk at Half Bay Marina.
Entrada at the dock.
Today, 50 slow miles in ten hours. Total 286 nm, about 1/3 the distance to Erie.
Today was going to be a long day, so we left the dock at 0615 in some substantial fog. The fog didn’t really have us too concerned as the wind was forecast to be light and the boat has a chart plotters and radar. AIS would have been nice, I am sure it is on the “list”.
The blue boat is about 115′. Both the blue boat and the sport fish with the green accent lighting had music playing all night on their aft decks. I guess it was to entertain the early risers (us). Actually, the sport fish was docked in front of the blue boat when we got in and a spot must have opened up on the inboard dock as they moved the boat to that location (and turned on their accent lighting) shortly thereafter.
This little guy showed up when we were a few miles offshore in the fog.
As we motored up the coast three more of his friends joined us. I couldn’t quite get one of them to sit on my finger, but they were quite friendly and seemed to keep busy eating bugs.
The skipper taking it easy while the boat is on autopilot.
Re-programming the chart plotter finally happened. We figured out how to customize the look of the screen so we could program in a route.
Notice the nice cockpit cushions. Evidently they were taken to Erie; the delivery crew doesn’t rate anything comfortable to sit on. You have to keep these people on their toes at all times.
The skies did clear although the radar showed us missing a rain shower by about a mile which was nice. We couldn’t have had a nicer trawler ride up the NJ coast. Seas were calm and while the wind increased to about 10 knots for a few hours it was from the west, which is off the land so we only had a light chop to contend with. By the time we got to Sandy Hook the wind had fallen off to virtually nothing. We did have to dodge the fishing fleet coming around the point of Sandy Hook but that is to be expected. It was cool on the water but when we got ashore it was uncomfortably warm.
At the dock at Monumount Marina in Great Kills. There was no room for us at Great Kills YC where we normally stay. This place was $0.25/foot cheaper per night but the rest rooms were a far cry from the YC facilities to say the least.
Arrival was around 1800, making for a twelve hour day. Internet service here is terrible, in the evening our download speed was 1.1 Mpbs, upload 0.0 forcing me to do this the following morning.
Before leaving this morning we need to go shopping for boat parts. Notably a hand held VHF radio and the fresh water pump that gave up the ghost overnight. I have two hand-helds, Bill has two-hand helds and Barn has two. Needless to say, nobody brought one. Bill did bring a small antenna and cable so we could use the fixed mount VHF in the nav station but that turned out to be a fools errand. The boats engine is located amidships, beneath the saloon settee, only a few feet from the nav station. With the engine running at speed you need to have the volume on the VHF turned up so high that the sound is distorted rendering it almost useless. The only good thing is that the fixed mount VHF transmits at 25 watts, as hand held at only 5 watts. You cannot hear the VHF that is down below when you are at the wheel, especially with the engine running. Power boaters like to complain about sailors as sailors never seem to answer their radio’s when hailed because most of them have their radios located down below to keep them out of the weather and therefore can not hear them. A hand held is really handy for close in communication, evidenced by the fact that the tow boat guy who was tethered to us was trying to give us instructions over the VHF and we couldn’t understand what he was saying yesterday as we didn’t have a hand held.
I seem to remember we knew we didn’t have a hand held while we were still in Annapolis and could have easily rectified the situation but I guess we didn’t realize how worthless the fixed mount VHF was going to be with the engine running. Live and don’t learn is our motto.
It only took us a day to learn the error of our ways and we knew that there was a West Marine in Cape May. How nice it would have been to had one a day earlier.
I sprung for the hand held VHF as we could use a “good” hand held on one of our boats and wouldn’t need to remember to keep dragging radios to and from Florida. Bill’s plan was to buy it, use it until we got back to Erie and then put it on Ebay. We saved him the trouble. We were able to find a direct replacement for the fresh water pump at another marine supply store just down from West Marine in Cape May.
At the dock in Cape May at the South Jersey Marina. There were boats on both sides of the dock with us but they left before us as they weren’t constrained by any draft issues.
Once our shopping was done we went back to the boat, re-filled our water tanks, filled the fuel tanks and were on our way twenty minutes after low tide at 0920. Low was actually four inches lower than low yesterday but we managed to get out the winding channel and exited Cape May on the Atlantic side. Once into the ocean we proceeded at a 60 degree heading up the coast with an east wind of about 12 knots. The boat was rolling around a bit, with sort of a snap roll due to the fact that we were “mast less”. The rolling and chop kept our boat speed below seven knots but as the day wore on the wind lightened as predicted to about five knots, and the seas settled down allowing us to approach eight knots for a number of hours, probably helped by about one half knot of current.
While motoring north, with our “downtime” we were able to sort out a few “issues” with the chart plotter such as reducing the cross track error graphic display from one mile left or right of course to 300 feet (we don’t think that being more than a football field off course is acceptable) and changing the arrival announcement from five miles to 60 feet. Being informed that your have arrived when you are five miles away from your true destination in a sailboat seems silly unless you are heading for Bermuda.
Just as we began our approach into the Absecon Inlet which leads into Atlantic City the rain caught up with us. It had been overcast with the temperature in the mid 60’s all day, making for a chilly run up the coast. We cooled our heels (dropped our boat speed down to a crawl) while we waited out the rain so we wouldn’t be on deck working with dock lines and getting wet for no real reason. Arrival was at 1630.
At the dock we set to work rebuilding the boat. Since the dock we are on is a low floater it is an ideal platform to stand and work on the rail. The life line stanchions are threaded into pockets that are part of the Kevlar epoxy structure that makes up the entire boat. In other words, the bases are not plates bolted through through the hull as on most boats. The original pins that support the stanchions are aluminum and some of them had broken making the life lines pretty much useless. Part of the “deal” when buying the boat was that they would be replaced. Of course you know how this story goes. The guy who promised to replace them by the time the boat was launched got confused on the date. When the boat went in the water he showed and then had to give up as he ran out of time. As we couldn’t be waiting on him any longer we took the parts and the easy-out he was using and would finish the job ourselves.
After drilling out the base (next to the piling) Bill used an easy-out with a large crescent wrench while I rapidly hit the top of the easy-out with a brass hammer simulating an impact driver. This method enabled us to extract the corroded, threaded insert from the deck pocket.
Close up view of the stud broken off flush at deck level. The replacement is stainless.
Fixed.
Next on the list was the replacement of the fresh water pump. Unfortunately, due to the fact that we didn’t know what we were getting into until we actually did it we had to do a half baked installation duplicating what was there. The pump has a threaded outlet that they simply stuck a hose on and clamped the heck out of the end to make it fit. What it should have had was a threaded barbed connection, but not realizing that ahead of time we had to make due. Put it on the list of “upgrades” for later.
Still to do is the alternator trouble shooting as well as the aft air conditioning unit but that will need to wait. After an on-board dinner of soup and left over pizza we trouped up the the casino to pay our stupid tax (all of us lost) before calling it a night.
The morning started out slowly, as in a five knot slog through the remainder of the C&D canal due to the current running against us. Eventually we reached the end of the canal and took off down the Delaware at ten knots making up for some of the time “lost” fighting the current in the canal. The light wind was from the north making it an easy ride south.
Cas merrily steering down the ship channel on the Delaware.
While the skipper (Bill) and I were napping we heard the engine RPM’s drop from our cruising speed of 2800 to idle which brought both of us scampering up the companionway stairs to see what was up. A small USCG boat was alongside requesting permission to board for a safety inspection. The Coast Guard crew was comprised of a number of young kids that were pretty laid back as far as uniformed officials go and the inspection was completed with out any issues. About this time our boat speed had dropped to slightly less than six knots as the tide and current had turned and we were again fighting an adverse current. Fortunately we were in an area of the bay where it had widened out and the volume of water wasn’t moving as fast as the northern region which is more confined.
This picture was taken to remind me that the guys from the CG boat were aboard. For some reason they are issued boots that tend to leave black marks on gel coated surfaces.
Like most trips across the Delaware Bay you pass large commercial vessels in the ship channel. Given our draft of 8′ we were sticking close to the channel for depth purposes and to avoid any crab pot fields although it might be early in the season for them.
This US flagged car carrier was north bound.
Eventually the wind shifted to the south east at about 10 to 12 knots which cooled things off considerably as the wind was coming off the ocean. When we make this trip on Liberty we are able to take a short cut across the shoals from the ship channel into Cape May. Not so with a boat drawing 8′. We had to go slightly south of Cape May and then head back north east to avoid some shallow spots. Better safe than sorry we thought. Up until this point it had been one of our nicer Delaware Bay crossings.
Coming into Cape May off the Delaware, instructions are to stay north in the channel, close to the ferry docks to avoid the shoals directly across from them which further extend to the end of the jetty. We thought we were doing good when another boat passed us waving madly at us to more further north in the channel. As they must have been locals, we complied since we noticed that our depth finder indicated we were close to being aground. We came back to a heading paralleling the channel, but closer to the wall when we came to a halt. Fortunately the bottom is sand, but the bad news is that the rudder, as skinny and sharp as it is on the bottom is slightly deeper than the keel in the raised position.
We were to see a lot more of that wall before we got free.
We tried to back off to no avail, requiring a call to be put in to Boat US for a tow. Bill, Barn and I all have the “Gold Card” with Boat US and it is good on any boat we are aboard so as far as towing costs go, we were pretty much covered. The tow boat arrived about a half hour later confident he could get us off. Entrada has about a two inch towing bridle that we rigged, dead ending it to two winches mounted on the deck next to our now non-existent mast. If the mast was in the boat, getting unstuck would have been simple as you just take a halyard from the top of the mast, pass it to a powerboat that puts a strain on it perpendicular to the boat, healing it over and allowing you to motor off the shallow spot. The bad news is that our mast was in Erie so the only option was to drag her into deeper water
The tow boat guy didn’t like our bridle as he said he didn’t trust the winches mounted on the deck and insisted that we use his towing bridle that simply went over the edge of the boat at the bow and wanted it looped over the only cleat near the head stay. This is one of those cleats that is recessed in the deck and when you press a button, pops up allowing you to make fast to it. The size is such that we can’t use it as a cleat as our dock lines are so large, forcing us to drop loops over it. We figured that cleat was going to be history by the time this was over due to the fact that we ran aground on a falling tide. With the tidal range at five feet and us hitting at mid-tide, the water was going to go down another 2-1/2 feet really putting us in a pickle. Low tide was about three hours away, and the next high was going to be around nine hours away unless we could get off.
You have to give the guy credit as he didn’t give up even when things weren’t looking too good. We we aground almost in the middle of a busy channel and if he didn’t get us off we were going to be sitting there in the dark. Numerous boats when by, the tow boat guy trying to get them to make as big of wake as possible to help us bump off but to no avail. A big shrimper even made three passes but it didn’t help. After about an hour of dragging us back and forth, Entrada popped back into the channel, such as it is and was able to proceed to the dock at the South Jersey Marina. When it appeared we might have to go to plan B, I called the marina to cancel our docking reservation. Plan B was to wait it out, float the boat off on a rising tide some hours later, go back out the way we came (in the dark), head around the outside of Cape May and to motor up the coast to arrive at Atlantic City in the morning light. Of course ten minutes after canceling, the boat was freed and I called South Jersey again to say we were on our way. The guy on the other end of the phone didn’t sound to happy and said he just gave away our dock but after a few minutes was able to find us another. I don’t know if this guy was just being a New Jersey-ite or what because when we got in there was plenty of room for other boats on the face dock they put us on.
The following shows the basic method the BoatUS guy used to free the boat. The bill was $1300, but completely covered by the “Gold Card”. Don’t go boating with out it 🙂 Don’t blame me for the title, used by permission of the owner (Rick).
Generally speaking, I don’t need a drink when we get the boat tied up at the end of the day, but tonight I did. A bit of Capt’n Morgan on the rocks got tossed down before we went to dinner at a local bar where the special was ribs. The only other casualty today was that Kas lost her cell phone over the side during the un-grounding. By the way, that cleat on the bow survived, it still goes into it’s deck recess and pops back up when required. We have been doing research on the 24v alternator issue but need some down time at a dock to trace wires. That didn’t happen this evening.
Today, twelve hours from dock to dock. Mileage 63 nm.
Life aboard LIBERTY 