We’re back doing fun sunset photoshoots on Cambio this season. This is Celina’s first photoshoot and she slayed it. Photoshoots are ongoing this summer until we point the boat south in late August and head for the Caribbean.
I plan to offer Caribbean photoshoots on Cambio and various beaches so if you are wanting to spend March break or some other time on a 41′ sailboat in the tropics, contact me at philcheevers@hotmail.com for rates and dates. We’ll be in the Bahamas in December.
I’ve posted on the Fall/Winter plans before, and I’ll probably do it again as we learn more and more about the routing from Lake Ontario to Puerto Rico.
Why Lake Ontario? Because that’s where we are now.
Why Puerto Rico? Because it is a convenient are to do some R&R after a trip of more than 2150 nautical miles.
R&R isn’t crucial because we are taking our time to get there. Critical dates include
September 1 Leave Oswego in the Erie Canal
October 12 Annapolis Boat Show
October 16 Leave for the south. Use the ICW sparingly and when out in the Atlantic, avoid Hattaras near Pamlico Sound and Frying Pan Shoals near Wilmington.
November 1 Arrive at St. Augustine.
November 5 Arrive at Bahamas. Play in the sand for a while.
December 1 It is still 1000 nm to Puerto Rico. (See the “Thorny Path” At 100nm per day that’s 10 days non stop. There will be stops along the way; Crooked Island, Mayaguana, Turks & Caicos, Puerto Rico. That last leg is a long stretch, probably upwind, but my insurance company doesn’t want me to go to Dominican Republic. I’m going to have to negotiate with them.
And if we get there for January 1, a month later, it means we had a great time.
Until sometime In May we’ll visit the lesser Antilles, which include all the Virgin Islands, Monserrat, St. Martin, the Islands in between. Plans to be devised.
Now pay attention. This will probably change as we get closer to planning.
It was really dark.
Our darkness happened at night, sailing down the middle of the lake, with clouds obscuring the lights of the towns along both shores, and nobody else on the lake.
Even the spreader lights did the deck no justice but they did highlight the foam close to the boat that lit up on the top of the 3 meter waves we were surfing down.
It was really dark
Ahead of us, and far away a single red light and two white lights appeared off our starboard bow. It started a conversation with my crew, Matt. We decided it was a later about 5 miles away. After discussion, Matt figured out that if we could see the red light, it must be going across our bow and we should watch it carefully. Besides the waves and the compass, this was the most interesting thing to watch.
We were on a course of about 63 degrees. We had left Port Dalhousie about 9 hours ago. Lakers tend to go down the middle of the lake in ‘laker lanes’ unless they are turning left or right to visit an industrial dock or turn into the Welland Canal.
Almost nothing in this paragraph makes sense. As the lights got closer we started to believe that we were on a collision course. I turned off the autopilot and steered to starboard. After a couple of minutes of hand steering, the compass told me I had strayed from 63 degrees and was now on 315 degrees. I used the autopilot to steer back to 63 degrees. It was not certain that we were on a collision course, but we were keenly aware of the 3 lights which were all we could see on a laker that was otherwise painted black. I hand steered again. I watched the lights. I checked the compass. We were far off course again. I repeated this a few times. It was difficult to hand steer in jet black!
Suddenly we could hear the rumble of the laker. It was about 200 meters from us, and definitely on a collision course. I turned to starboard with caring what the course was. The laker had its own bow wave and it was white. We looked up at the laker’s gunwales as we passed the hull, 50 to 100 meters away. The laker’s wake bounced us about as it passed. My adrenaline was at a high. But we had avoided the collision.
There were two boats in the lake and we found each other.
Lessons learned.
When we looked at the track the next day, It’s clear where the meeting happened. The laker must have been off the usual navigation channels, perhaps on her way to Cobourg industries.
Matt and I were sitting safely in his living room, sipping whisky and burning stogies and talking about last season on Cambio and next season’s plans.
Matt is a teacher here in Niagara and only has July and August off full time and weekends, but there’s plenty of sailing to be done and he’s good at it.
Matt was on board during the July 20 storm https://sailingcambio.com/2022/07/20/the-storm/ and the two of us worked as well as anyone I’ve ever worked with in harrowing storm situations. I like the phrase, “The wind hit us about 30nm down the lake and we couldn’t go upwind due to breakages, so we sailed a broken boat 100nm down Lake Ontario to a safe harbour.
The metrics for this storm were a sustained wind of 43 knots, boat speed of 14.2 knots, and following waves of up to 8 meters, or in the range of 24 feet. The wind and speed are right off the instruments, but It is hard to estimate wave height. I just turn around when I’m at a top of one crest and picture 4 six foot men standing on their shoulders from trough to crest. That’s about 24 feet.
I’ve already written about the first storm I had a bad experience with. It was in 1991 and involved a 24’ Shark sailboat, 60 knot gusts and 24’ waves. Sharks don’t usually have instruments so I don’t know how fast we were going before, well, disaster happened. But it was fast. The short story is that I broached, was washed off my sailboat 8 miles offshore and had to swim into shore. The whole story is here in the log: https://sailingcambio.com/1991/09/21/washed-off-my-sailboat/
I recall one ‘interesting’ crossing from Oakville to St. Catharines with Judy Kingsley. We had just stopped and got a bucket of KFC chicken and the sunset was fabulous as we left the dock under spinnaker. The sun went down, so did the spinnaker, and we followed a compass course to St. Catharines. There was great chatter and lots of talk among Judy and I on the Shark that was fairly newly mine. The waves built in the dark from the west and we were battered on the starboard quarter until we turned west to surf. We just accepted that we’d have a couple of hours of uncomfortable surfing motion in big waves and then have to turn right to get into the harbour. The wind shifted North and that helped us when we turned towards the harbour but we were still surfing down waves. I don’t recall how big, but big.
The harbour pours out quite a bit of volume and when the wind hits it head on from the north huge standing waves park themselves at the entrance to the mouth of the harbour. We surfed a lake wave and plowed right into a harbor current wave. I held on to the tiller. There were 9 standing waves to hit with short fetches between them. And suddenly we were though and speeding up the channel under main and jib. As we went by the yacht club where a party in full festivity, someone yelled, “Look at that, someone’s coming in under sail!” then I heard “They must know what they are doing!” That’s when I got nervous. Then I heard a familiar voice yell the name of my boat “Humbly!” but Judy and I were policing lines and getting ready to dowse the jib and head into a very small space between two boats along the wall. We got there, didn’t hit one boat very hard, and breathed a sigh of relief when someone on land grabbed the forestay and we flogged the main and got it down. It was all a mad flurry of activity.
The lines were away, the sails tied down or stowed and I looked at Judy’s face. Then I looked at the carnage on the decks. The bones from the KFC bucket had been left on a bench and we’d forgotten them in the dark. It looked like a mad dog had gotten a hold of the bones and they were all over the cockpit. Judy and I could just laugh somewhat maniacally. It was an interesting crossing.
Four more storms come to mind, defined as ‘being followed by 4 men standing in the trough of a wave’, or 24 feet waves and appropriate winds, and all except one in Lake Ontario. Nothing awful happened in those storms except an exhilaration and great fellowship among the crew and a build up of experience that almost certainly helped me in the two storms where ‘shit happened’.
On deck and to be published sometime this spring will be that last storm, in a delivery of Richard Hinterhoeller’s Niagara 31 with two other doughty sailors chasing a storm down Lake Erie. Stay tuned!
I went to the Toronto Boat Show with a couple of friends this past weekend. I couldn’t walk so far or so well so I was focussed on what I wanted to see.
I’ve gotten a Starlink, a couple of laptops and all rechargeable lighting and other tools. I’m also preparing to spend more time away from shore power and anchored out away from docks. This suggests that my 190W solar panel from 2007 needs to be upsized. I’ve decided to shop for an 800W system which hopefully will fit on the current arch. I’d take the current solar panel off and replace it with 2 rigid panels. I’m unable to measure the current arch for fit but I hope I can use it as is. Otherwise there’ll be some welding/bolting to do.
This implies a bigger MPPT and may demand more or bigger batteries. I’m not sure I’m ready to go to lithium yet but my 4 6 volt golf cart batteries may not hold enough charge. I haven’t done the inventory of usage yet. Before all this I acquired a 1000 amp inverter to replace the current 300 amp inverter and this tempts me to use bigger 110v power than ever. I’m not sure that’s a good idea, but there it is.
The back up system, in case house batteries discharge, Is the 95amp alternator on the motor and starting batteries and windlass batteries to start it.
So I’m shopping for a larger, entire solar system.
Toronto is on Lake Ontario, far from the ocean. I should not have been surprised that there were lots of dinghy sales booths but I did not see a single life raft company at a Toronto boat show. But I was. I’ll have to google life raft companies and spend the time on my butt reaching out to them.
The big win for me was the new edition of the Lake Ontario Ports book. It came out this month and lists every port on Lake Ontario: descriptions of each club and marina with information on getting there, phone numbers, repair shops, and town essentials. I happily bought it and over a beer, checked out the places I’d been in 2022 and brought back memories. I am planning to cruise the hell out of Lake Ontario this year before heading south and this is the ultimate planning guide for me.
I remember in the 1990s sailing my 24’ Shark in company with another Shark (Lady Carol’s Aquarius) from Kingston to Niagara on the Lake.
These Sharks had a compass and nothing else, but Lake Ontario is fairly easy to navigate. If you are on the west end, you can take a sighting on the CN Tower in Toronto. If you are on the East end, follow the shoreline. There aren’t many rocks and one Shark sailor (Miss you Bo) used to sail up to the shore and ask anyone mowing their lake shore lawn which way to go.
Carol had the official chart of Lake Ontario and I had the Ports book. I’d follow her to the entrance and she would follow me into the harbour.
What did I learn during that trip on Sharks from Kingston? Drunken olives are made by draining a jar of olives and pouring in vodka to replace the olive juice. Place in bow in the morning and it is ready for consumption when you dock in the evening. And a few other things.
As I was walking through the many large retail booths a thought struck me. While I liked looking at the shiny new things, I didn’t really need any of them. Cambio is very well equipped. So I looked harder for something to buy and really didn’t find anything. I need some bib sailing pants but that was it. This realization made me feel rather good for the state of Cambio’s inventory for this spring.
In 3 weeks the doctors will cut open my knees, shave them down, and install new knees on both legs. This has already made me more philosophical than usual but has changed the way I look at my plans somewhat. They cut in mid February and I’m laid up for some time, getting better every day. But there’s no “official fix day”. It is a gradual improvement thing that makes planning a bit tricky.
I’m still leaving for the South on September 1. I plan to have the boat launched about May 1, which is 3.5 months after surgery. I don’t know if I’ll be able to climb the ladder to get to the boat to do the required pre-launch required tasks. This might mean changes in priorities or a change in the May 1 launch date until the boat is ready, perhaps June 1.
The things I’ve identified as pre-launch priorities are:
Most of these have alternative methods usually involving bosuns chairs or snorkels, but let’s do it the safest and easiest way possible. I also want to wash the topsides and buff out the scratches that are proof of my docking lessons, but they can be done afterwards, with more difficulty.
In the mean time I’m studying, watching youtube videos on sailboat maintenance and lifestyle (shoutout to James, Plukky, Ryan, Sophie, Kika and Dan and all the others who cheer me up in Canada’s winter’s grasp.).
It has been a year since I committed to buy Cambio. That launched a furious rounds of planning, building spreadsheets, researching options and outsourcing advice by reading and following sailing YouTube channels.
It is interesting to compare last year’s plans with this years plans, now that I’ve been through a season with Cambio.
Last year my plan was to sail the boat all over Lake Ontario in all kinds of conditions. I needed to have both me and the boat in good enough shape to leave for the Caribbean on September 1, 2022.
This year I have the same plan, to leave for the Caribbean on September 1 2023
I’ve a long list of somber lessons from 2022, some of which are covered in other parts of this log.
Had I left on September 1 2022, I would have run into hurricanes Fiona and Ian somewhere between about New York and Norfolk. This would not be good. I’m very aware for the 2023 season that I’ve got to remember that angry weather will have to be watched and dealt with (aka avoided). Will I go out to Bermuda and turn right towards Bahamas? Will I take the ICW? (I don’t really want to spend a lot of time motoring.) Will I follow the shoreline 20-30 miles offshore while avoiding the Gulf Stream? And what will the prevailing winds force me to do? All of this is determined by the weather in close up observations so at this point being aware of future decisions is all I can do now.
The critical dates for the fall departure are August 1 (which is the go/no go decision date), September 1 (the departure date), October 15 (The New York canal system closes) and December 1 (The nominal end of hurricane season in the Caribbean)
Last year I had planned to buy some big-ticket items here in Canada. They included in somewhat priority, Dinghy & Motor, Freezer, Liferaft, Watermaker, Ais transmitter (I have a receiver), Wind self steering, Standing Rigging inspection, Solar Upgrade.
In the July 20 Storm, Matt and I had the furler and genoa destroyed in 43 knots of wind and effectively broke the boat for going upwind meant that we sailed 40 miles through the storm and then another 100 miles to Kingston on a broken boat and high wind and waves.
I had a forced 6 week maintenance period in Kingston where the engine was overhauled, the propeller was repaired, the sail was resewn, the mainsail reefing, lazy jacks, and assorted lines were ‘restrung’, and all the major systems, including the standing rigging were checked. The furler was repaired in October. Other than the dinghy and motor, which were bought before the storm, the big ticket items simply were not purchased.
However, there is a new list.
So it has all been about risk management, limited resources (people and money) and building redundancy, all program management concepts that hold over from my previous career. And the same tools, budgets on Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, even the dreaded PowerPoint.
It’s January 3. I only have 120 days until launch.
August 16-August 21, 2022, Niagara on the Lake Sailing Club
This may not be about Cambio, but it is about my involvement with sailing life. I really enjoyed photographing the 2022 Canada Games Sailing competitions. The kids were a great group of competitors and the organization was fabuous, even though the organizers, who shielded us from anything that went wrong by simply sorting it out first, made it an amazing event.
I was taken by Ontario’s Siobhan MacDonald who got 8 bullets in the Para Mix division. The boats they use were mini 12 meters, called 2.4 class. She is incredibly nice and I got some good pictures on land and on the start line.
The other two photos I am really happy with are the 29ers and the Lasers at the start.
Stephanie dropped by for a sunset photoshoot the other day. She has modeled with me for about 7 years and we always click nicely. Here are a few of our images.
This was a great chance to meet fellow photographer Mark Wong ( https://www.instagram.com/yaamon/ ) and spend some time with a fantastic model, Tessa.
