whoever said that taking a longer voyage home was a great way to get to know your boat certainly had it right - the good and the bad.
The good was that the boat was ok for the most part, the greatest was the people we met along the way, the bad was a factor of older engines.
There are two groups of photo's. The first is departing Chrisholm Marina in Chester....great marina.. 2. is going out to Long Island Sound,3 and 4 are from Liberty Landing Marina NJ, 5 is departing West Point, 6 is Colemans's Landing Albany and 7. is Lock 9 on the Champlain Canal.
We were doing great up until Albany, averaging 15 kts, upping to 20 kts on the Hudson, but blew a head gasket just after refueling in Albany. It was sheer serendipity to have the mechanic of the yacht club at the bar when our gasket blew and he had the right parts and replaced both port head gaskets between 1700h and 2300h that same night. Notwithstanding that repair, the port engine continued to give us problems. (more on that on a separate post - something wrong with the closed cooling system)
Arriving on Lake Champlain, made it to a few miles north of the Champlain Bridge only to be confronted with weather advisories of 70km/h winds and severe thunderstorms. We backtracked to Champlain Bridge Marina and were impressed with the reception, - we asked where we could get some beer, and a member offered to go get some for us - returning with 12 beer, chips, ice, and absolutely refused to take any money from us for having done so. There are some great people around.
Left Champlain Bridge Marina, headed for Burlington VT for a short stop and finally ended up at Mooney Bay NY.
Overall, the boat was great except for the port engine problem and a minor issue on the starboard engine where I had to replace a fuel filter - I suspect bad gas at Whitehall (or ethanol) Also found it sad that the owner of the Marina at Whitehall may be forced to sell in two weeks as traffic has declined precipitously of late and commensurately his ability to make the marina work. Promised to send some ideas. Certainly the closure of the Eire Canal until this week has not helped - but one thing I discerned this trip was that many are not venturing on the water much this year.
- Departing Chrisholm Marina CT
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- Heading to LI Sound
- IMG_0232.jpg (97.84 KiB) Viewed 5464 times
- Liberty Landing NJ
- IMG_0034.jpg (100.69 KiB) Viewed 5464 times
