CS34 Whitby to Toronto Take II

After breaking one boat, it was time to try the trip again on Still Time.

I had called ahead to Mark and Peter and they prepared the boat:

• filled water tanks
• removed standup paddle boards from aft cabin
• prepped mainsail
• removed dodger covers
• borrowed a spared 20L can of diesel fuel

We transferred everything from Skana to Still Time.

Mark and Peter

Leaving the dock

Left the dock just before 6pm.

Four sailors were about to face the elements.  The forecast was to 20+ knots of wind from the SW with gusts in the low 30s.  Everyone got their fowl weather gear and life jackets on.  We hoisted a double reefed main in the harbour.  We completely flattened it: major reef outhaul pressure, halyard pressure, and the vang on HARD.

Double reefed main

Once out the channel, we unfurled the 110 jib and were flying along on a close reach out into the lake.  Very wavy, but managable.  We purposely moved the jib cars back to flatten the bottom of the head sail and spill wind out the top.  We skipped along at close to 6 knots.  We wanted to head offshore to avoid a lee shore later, so we headed about 4 miles into the lake with ZERO VMG to Toronto.

Once we tacked to the west, we could only muster between 2 and 3 knots of boat speed into the wind/waves, so I put the motor on @2,500 RPM to keep our speed up between 5 and 6 knots.

Crazy wind and waves!  The boat just handled it!  
We had waves breaking over the bow and covering the dodger!

We used the autopilot set to sail to a wind angle of 35 degrees.

We were overpowered in the 30+ knot puffs, and would feather the boat into the wind with the autopilot to keep her on her feet.

Our baby stay detached: split ring broke, so we hove to and fixed it.  Good thing we didn't have to tack after that because the lazy sheet was run inside the baby stay. THAT could have been a disaster on a lee shore!

A while later, a couple of the crew were feeling seasick.  Going below was not an option, so we hove to again, and got some water and meds.  While hove to, we were drifting east at close to 4 knots!

We covered the 14 miles as the crow flies (sailing probably 20 miles with tacks) in about 4 hours.

I made the decision to pulling into CBYC at 10pm.  Did not want to spend another 4 hours to get to Toronto in these conditions.

Twas a good decision.

Getting into the CBYC channel in the dark was a challenge.

No photos.

GPS track from Chart Plotter: