Erie Canal Opening

There are three routes connecting the Great Lakes to the oceans: the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Illinois River to the Tenn-Tom water way, and the Erie Canal. Any of the three are great for going to the ocean. This year, the Erie Canal is the only practical way back.

The St Lawerence Seaway, which is the route we took leaving the Great Lakes, has several issues. The border between the US and Canada is still closed. And, the current in the River is too strong for a sailboat to try and motor up. Summer might be over before we made it upstream. We’d also need a tanker following us to keep me refueled.

The Illinois River and Tenn-Tom waterway is doable for a sailboat going upstream. The problem is the Army Corp of Engineers, who manage the locks, have been planning for several years now, to close the locks on the Illinois River for the 2020 season to do much needed maintenance.

That leaves the Erie Canal as the best, quickest, and easiest route to get back to the Great Lakes. Unfortunately, we will have to unstep our mast to transit the Erie Canal, and there are other issues this year as well.

In a normal year, maintenance crews start working on the canal in March to get it ready for the May 15th opening date. During the height of the virus, the canal was deemed non-essential and work crews were sent home. At one point, there was talk of not even opening the canal in 2020. When the maintenance crews were finally allowed to return to work, they were a couple of months behind and much of the work couldn’t be accelerated.

On May 15th, the Canal sent out an opening schedule email. It had lots of TBDs and dates ranging from July 3rd to August 10th, but the canal was going to open. We wanted to go through the canal as soon as possible so we decided we get to New York early hoping they would get the canal opened early. We were hoping for the July 3rd date. It happened, but it didn’t.

Technically, the canal opened on June 26, several days ahead of schedule. Boating friends have been forwarding me articles about the canal being opened. What the articles fail to mention is the canal isn’t completely open. Each route has at least one lock that won’t open until August 10th. It is not possible to go end to end. You can make it half way, then turn around and come back, you can’t go through.

The latest is the canal won’t be open to through traffic until August 10th. So, here we sit in up state New York waiting.

Early on, we talked to a couple of transport companies to have our mast shipped from Albany to Buffalo. Most sailboats strap the mast on deck and bring it with. Our mast is 20 feet longer than our boat, so I’d have a lot of overhang I’d have to deal with while docking and locking, so I was thinking about having it shipped.

One of the transport companies also included a quote on having the boat and mast shipped. When we heard the canal wasn’t going to “open” until August 10th, I started making more calls to see if I could have the boat shipped to Buffalo and skip the canal altogether. There are a lot of boats queued up waiting for it to open. The first few days are going to be busy trying to get through the canal. If I shipped, I’d be beating the crowds.

For more than a week, we kept going back and forth about shipping the boat. One day it would seem like the best idea in the world, the next day, I was crazy to ship the boat. The decision has been made, and we are going to put the mast on the boat and motor up the canal. No shipping any of it.

What I came to learn is it sounds simple to throw your boat on a trailer and pull it behind a truck, but not for a boat the size of Odyssey. Boats need to be prepared for shipping and it’s a fair amount of work. The shipping company has to work on getting oversized load permits. Once the boat is shipped, the receiving marina has to commission the boat, which is basically undoing all the work the previous marina did to prep it for shipping.

In addition to all of this, many boats get damaged. Nothing major, but enough to add time and money to the endeavor. I’m not sure we would have bought any time by having it shipped — just more expenses and work.

So, we have more than a month to kill, and we’re next to an Amtrak line. We’ve decided to take a vacation and come home for a couple of weeks. We have the boat secured at a marina in Catskill New York. The sails and boom are off the boat. I’ve been lubing and working the turnbuckles on all the shrouds to get them ready to take the mast down when we get back.

We’re catching an overnight train to Union Station and scheduled to arrive at 9:50AM. If Metra still has the same schedule, we’ll catch the 10:30 train home. I checked my wallet and I still have the emergency 10 ride I carried in case I lost or forgot my monthly train pass.

We did not buy a return ticket. If the canal announces they’re opening early, I’ll be buying a ticket on the next train or renting a one-way car. If the canal doesn’t open this year, I’ll be driving back in my van to have the boat hauled out for winter and try again next year.

We’ll keep putting out updates.