We left lock eight early Wed morning and headed thru the last seven locks with no disasters.  Down locks are easy.  We stopped at Waterford, NY to meet up with Charly Dickerson who signed on to help us thru the locks but his job delayed him until Wed pm.  He met us at Waterford driving from Montpelier.  For those going thru the Champlain Canal, Waterford has a municipal dock with free water and electricity (for cruising sailors, free is a magic word) located at the NY State police barracks.  One bad sign we noted was the padlock on the dock lines for the State police patrol boat tied at the Waterford dock.  Charly helped get us thru the Troy (Federal) Lock which is the first lock to both the Champlain Canal and the Erie Canal.

The Wall

The Federal lock is only a few miles from Waterford and we got there about 8 am Thursday.  The lock gates were not open and the lockkeeper said it would be about 10 min to get the lock ready.  We saw a barge tied to the wall and assumed it was locking thru with us, so we tied at the end of the wall behind it to wait.  The light turned green so we started to leave from the wall to enter the lock.  All of a sudden we were pinned against the wall and with both Genie and Charly pushing away as hard as they could, we were not able to get away.  Island Time was hitting against the wall at the deck level above the fenders and fender board.  The top of the mast banged into the wall.  We finally decided to try and use reverse to back away from the wall as the prop would pull the stern away.  Genie backed up Island Time hard reverse while I went to the bow and managed to push it away with Charly’s assist, while the stern pulled away due to Island Time’s prop.  We were finally free and heading for the gate when we noticed a tugboat across the entrance pushing a dredge into shore.  The backwash from the tug’s prop was the cause of our problem.  The barge ahead of us was part of the work crew rebuilding the entrance wall (from the north) to the lock and was not locking thru, so we did not need to tie up behind it.  That was quite a scare.  Fortunately the only damage to Island Time was scuffing of the stainless rub rail and a slightly bent wind vane at the top of the mast.  For all you lake sailors do not get behind a tug.

Hop O Nose

We motored down to Catskill, NY to Hop O Nose Marina to get Island Time’s mast put up.  We arrived about 2 pm and removed the cockpit canvas and the mast was up by 4 pm.  Now the real work started in putting up all the items we removed for the trip down the canal such as the solar cells, wind generator and sails.  This took until Friday evening to complete so we stayed at the Marina Friday night.  The owner, who just purchased the marina, did the work to put up the mast and also worked at the bar/restaurant as we met him later.  He is a Yankee fan (good guy) and Charly and I watched the game at bar Friday nite.

The crane used to put up the mast was like a page out of history.  It has riveted beams, open gears to drive the hook and a block and tackle attached to a nearby tree to swing it around.  I was very happy with their work and would recommend them to anyone for mast stepping.

Poughkeepsie Yacht Club

Charly was keeping an eye on the train schedule for his trip home and we decided that Poughkeepsie was a good place to drop him off so he could catch a train to Troy to get back to his car he left in Waterford.  We arrived at the Yacht Club at about 12 pm and watched them set ready to start a regatta.   For those of you, who froze on the committee boat to run a race, listen to this.  The clubhouse sits above the river with a second story and deck overlooking the river.  The starting line is a pumphouse on the far shore and the flagpole right in front of the deck (which is adjacent to the bar).  The RC starts and finishes the race from the clubhouse deck.  Talk about convenience.

The members were very friendly and quite informative.  The clubhouse is very clean and well maintained.  The club has its own travel lift and stores members boats for the winter along with a fuel dock.  One of the members was kind enough to give Charly a ride to the train station. It was a good place to stay.

New York City

Sunday we motored down to NYC riding a favorable current most of the way and stayed at the 79^th Street Marina on a mooring.  We need to get used to currents and tides which do not exist on Lake Champlain.  Neither do tugs and barges.  The picture posted below show that you can see everything in NYC.

The marina is right on the Hudson River and is not protected from wakes and waves.  The mooring balls do not have pick ups so it was challenging to tie onto the mooring ball.  Due to the tangle of lines on the mooring ball ring and the strong current, we did not get our best dockline thru the ring but instead, it was thru the thimble of one the lines.  The next morning we found our dockline pulled thru the bottom of the thimble and was held only by the splice.  We were lucky the splice did not chafe thru and all it cost us was a dockline as we could not get it free and had to cut it away when we left.

The marina is well protected from the city surrounded by a fence and security gate.  We walked under Riverside drive and ended up on Broadway at 79^th Street.  We walked 4 blocks to the Fairway Supermarket to do some provisionng.  This is quite a store.  They could not put more items into one place, a real study in efficient packing.  The place had ethnic food of all varieties, fresh fruits and vegetables piled high in the aisles, a cheese area with more kinds of cheese than I ever knew existed.  There is at least one advantage of living in the city.

The weather was bad on Monday with south winds at 20-25 so we stayed put at the marina doing small projects on the boat such as rigging jack lines in preparation for the nighttime transit of the Jersey shore.