The Last Leg of the trip home

I found myself alone on my sailboat ILEANA in pitch darkness. It was 4 AM. This was the last leg of the the 1500 nautical mile voyage from Bahamas back to Port credit on Lake Ontario. The wind was blowing 23 kn from the stern of the boat. There were massive waves making the boat pitch from side to side. It was raining. For the second time on this trip, the auto helm was not working. This meant it was going to be a long 20 hours from Oswega New York to Port Credit hand steering the boat by myself in the darkness. During the day, often you can keep the boat straight by using visual clues such as clouds to go in a straight line, but at night in the pitch blackness, without auto helm, it is easy to head off in the wrong direction and go around in circles. It was cold and miserable.

The voyage had taken longer than expected. After leaving the Bahamas, it became obvious we would hit a terrible storm before we got to New York City and so we made a decision to hunker down in Norfolk Virginia while the storm passed. Getting from Norfolk to New York City was uneventful, but once we arrived on the Hudson River, we had difficulties finding someone to take down our heavy mast. To traverse the Erie Canal and go up through the lock system to Oswega and onto Lake Ontario, it is necessary to remove the mast and transport this on a cradle on top of the deck so that the boat fits underneath the bridges. I found someone at Scarano boatworks in Albany who was up to the job but it would not be for two weeks. What this meant was that I needed to leave the boat at Shady Harbor Marina, near Albany, New York. I flew home for these two weeks to recruit crew to help me take sailing vessel ILEANA through the Erie Canal and the lock system back to Lake Ontario so I could bring her home.

Much to my surprise, my wife Ileana wanted to come on this adventure. Also to my surprise, my long time sailing friend Steve-a surgeon at UHN-wanted to come as well. It is quite the nautical feat to guide a 51 foot sailboat that weighs 35,000 pounds through the 30 lock Erie Canal without doing irreparable damage to the sailboat and to the mast. There’s a great deal of turbulence that occurs as the lock fills with water and this can bounce the boat on the concrete walls of the locks with a great deal of force and destruction. It was comforting to know that two seasoned sailors were helping to guide her through. Steve arrived on a morning flight to Albany. However, by afternoon there were terrible thunderstorms and Ileana’s flight kept on getting delayed. Finally the flights were cancelled but there was a single flight to New York City that was arriving at around midnight. I sent the local Uber driver who lives on a trawler at the same marina on the 2 1/2 road trip to LaGuardia Airport in New York City. Vince arrived, Ileana did not. Sometime after midnight it was obvious that all flights were cancelled, so Ileana left the airport and went home…… leaving Steve and I to manage the treacherous journey by ourselves.

We left the Shady Harbor Marina at 6 AM and headed towards Scarano boat works in the Albany about a 10 mile journey.

Heavy 72 foot mast geting loaded on the supports on the deck of the ILEANA

Lake Ontario is 283 feet above sea level. To get there from New York, it is necessay to go through a seies of locks and canal system known as the Erie Canal. Getting through the locks required that we place many rubberized fenders along the side of the boat that would be against the concrete wall so as not to damage the hull. We chose the starboard side to place the fenders because the mast was not positioned in the centre of the boat. We deliberately placed the mast on the port side so that we would have more room to get around the cockpit as we motored up the 200 mile lock system. This resulted in the aluminum spreaders of the mast hanging over the port side of the boat by about 2 feet. The plan was to always tie up on the starboard side of the boat going up the locks, so we would not damage the spreaders or the mast. Never having done this before, I was a little bit anxious. Steve had been through the Welland Canal on his sailboat so he had some experience about the turbulence and the difficulties. We were told ahead of time that there will be ropes that we can hold onto. The plan was for Steve to hold a rope close to the bow of the boat and I was to grab a rope close to the stern. The mast hung over the bow of the boat by about 8 feet so it was my job to keep the stern close to the wall to avoid the boat from pivoting and smashing the mast into the concrete wall causing damage. Here is a video of Steve getting ready as we enter the first lock and us discussing a plan preparing for all possible contingencies…. John’s helpful suggestion- ” I dunno, I guess we’ll find out eh”

After the first three locks, we were feeling pretty confident that we had the system down pat. We hadn’t done any damage to the boat or the mast and I will say we were actually at the point where we were pretty cocky about the whole experience. We felt that we really had nothing to worry about and would take on any of the locks and come out unscathed. As we were entering the next lock, we were told “you must tie up on the port side”. We had not prepared for this. We were able to move the fenders over to the port side but as you recall, the spreaders were hanging over the port side and the concern was that we would damage them. However, at this point, the lock was starting to fill up with water and we did our best to try and protect the spreaders from hitting the wall which for a 35,000 pound sailboat is pretty much impossible. The boat is going to go where the water pushes it and even though Steve and I were strong, we had met our match…… There was a lot of cursing and swearing and astonished looks from the skippers in other sailboats that were going up in the same lock. After we got to the top, surprisingly, the only damage was a small plastic boot covering the shrouds at the top spreader was knocked off but the spreader itself was not damage. I am not sure how we got so lucky. This changed our cocky attitude towards the locks and we assumed a more respectful manner as we went through the rest of the locks…..

The Erie canal is quite beautiful. As the canal is man-made, parts of it are completely straight. The weather was absolutely perfect, with the sun and a cool breeze to keep us from getting too hot.

At night we would stop and tie up at a dock. Many of the docks are free, as the towns like to attract sailor tourists to come and eat in their restaurants and ice cream parlours.

One of the best parts about a journey are the people you meet. For example, we met Paul and Ed. Ed is a delivery skipper and was bringing a trawler from Newport to Etobicoke Yacht Club in Toronto. The owner was keen to get the boat as soon as possible so as to enjoy the summer boating season. Ed has made the journey up the Erie canal previously and was giving us great advice on the way up. We would talk to each other using the VHF radio and Ed and Paul would often prepare us for the next lock so we would not have any more surprises. Paul and Ed were full of stories. Ed owned a 40 foot sailboat that he originally kept at the Port credit yacht club. He sold the boat to Paul who now kept it in the Bahamas for the past 6 years. One of the stories they tell is when it was predicted that hurricane Dorian was going to flatten the Bahamas in 2020. They both flew down to the Bahamas, motored the sailboat over to Florida which took about 18 hours, and then hunkered down there. The hurricane hit 12 hours later and pretty much destroyed much of the Bahamas where there sailboat had been. The sailboat was safe thanks to their quick actions. As I reflect on this, I’m not sure I would have the courage to take my sailboat out onto the ocean knowing there is a hurricane coming in a few hours……

Ed tells the story of another time when he was off the eastern coast of the US trying to get to Newport and Rhode Island for an America’s Cup race. There was a hurricane that he was trying to avoid but in doing so he kept on getting pushed out further to sea. There were huge waves and up to 50 kn of wind. He was getting blown towards Europe. He was running out of fuel and the only way he would be able to make it back to Newport would be to motor. He called his wife on his satellite phone who then contacted the US Coast Guard. There was a Russian container ship nearby who came to the rescue. By using the huge sides of the Russian ship, they were able to blanket the wind and they launched a zipline, which Ed shackled to the side of the sailboat. The line was tensioned, but just before the Gerry cans full of diesel hit the side of the sailboat and smash into the hull, they would relax the lines. The Russians seem to know what they were doing. They were able to transfer enough containers of diesel to fill up the fuel tanks. The captain of the ship was not so interested in getting the empty Gerry cans back, but wanted the shackles that were used to tie the ziplines to the sailboat. The shackles were placed in a Nike waterproof sports bag, along with a bottle of rum and a note thanking them for their lifesaving assistance and the bag was transferred back to the Russian ship. Ed was expecting an excited response about the bottle of rum, but the Russians were more excited about the Nike sports bag…….. so much for stereotypes…..

The Oswega Marina was very accommodating and able to step our mast without any difficulties. The mast had to be lifted off the supports on the deck of ILEANA with a huge crane, and then positioned very carefully on the step. The wire shrouds were tightened so to keep the mast in place. From there, it is a matter of rigging the rest of the lines and attaching the electronics. The wooden frames that were used to secure the mast on the deck were dismantled. This took the rest of the day.

This was now Monday. Steve had hastily made plans to come on this trip with me and was supposed to be on call for the acute care surgical service at his hospital. He had convinced a colleague to cover him but was fielding many phone calls. Steve was trying to manage problems at the hospital and at the same time rig the sailboat to get ready for the voyage from Oswega to Port Credit Yacht Club. This would be a 131 miles trip, about 20 hours. This was the last leg of the 1500 mile trip from the Bahamas and the plan was to get started as soon as possible.

I have pretty much retired from the Humber River hospital where I spent 37 years as a surgeon. As a surgeon, you can never be free of your responsibilities to the patients and to the hospital, until you retire. I understand the difficulties that a surgeon faces when trying to balance work with the other activities of life. There is a constant tug which will always pull the surgeon back to the hospital in spite of making plans that should free up time to do other activities. This was the case with Steve. I suggested that he get back to Toronto as soon as possible. It was 5:00 o’clock in the afternoon and as the Acute Care Surgeon, he had been assigned to help a gynecologist in the operating room at 9 AM the following morning for an urgent procedure that required his expertise. We spent the next two hours planning how to get him back to Toronto. It’s not possible to rent a car and drive across the border and there are no flights from Oswega to Toronto. However, there was a taxi driver who was willing to take him to Niagara Falls. From there, he could walk across the Peace Bridge and be picked up by someone to drive him back to Toronto.

The taxi driver, after hearing Steve’s story decided to drive like a maniac through the pouring rain and Steve felt lucky to have arrived at the Peace Bridge in Niagara Falls alive. He then walked across the bridge sopping wet in the darkness and pouring rain lugging his huge bag full of sailing gear expecting to be turned away by the customs officers fearing he was a refugee…… Fortunately, they believed his story and he was able to get to work on time for the following morning.

This left me at 4:00 in the morning on Lake Ontario in the pitch blackness. The autohelm was broken and I had to steer by hand the entire way. This can be challenging especially when trying to manage bathroom breaks…… I eventually figured out it was easier to stop the boat and float with the wind and waves. This would free me up so I could make a sandwich or get a drink…. and safely take a bathroom break.

I arrived at the Port Credit Yacht Club at around midnight on June 7, 2022. S/V ILEANA had been away for the past 6 months and she has been through some amazing adventures. I have discovered many new things about life and living at sea. I will spend the summer getting ILEANA ready for her next chapter……….