Sailing Vessel Still Time: CS34 Still Time Delivery from Trident back to Whitby

As we neared the end of September, in the back of my mind was the delivery of Still Time from her summer home at the Trident Yacht Club to her winter home at the Whitby Yacht Club.

Whitby's haulout is not until Oct 21, but with unpredictable fall weather, remnants of hurricanes, and the Murray Canal's limited hours, I wanted to get her done. Actually the Murray closes on Thanksgiving weekend.

Using PredictWind weather routing:

Click for BIGGER

Blue is less than 6 knots.
Green is 6-12 knots.
Yellow is 12-16 knots.

North wind 12-16 knots for 24 hours? LETS GO

Me, Rita, and Shadow picked up Walter at his house in Enniskillen, then picked up Mark at his house in Port Hope. We got to Trident before 3pm.

We loaded up Still Time with gear and provisions.

We pinned all turnbuckles with zipties, and loaded the truck with gear not required for the journey.

3 Amigos ready for departure:

See ya later Rita (and Shadow):

See ya later Trident (we left a little after 3pm):

The one side of the enclosure is not fitting right; the zipper is about 2" out to close.

The frame must have shifted.
Sure enough in about 20 minutes we were able to stretch the canvas, and shift the frame to get the last panel on the enclosure closed for the delivery:

Winds were only about 6 knots from the NW, so we hoisted the main and continued on motor sailing at 6 knots.

You can see where we turned into the wind to hoist the main.

We tried the jib, but were were motoring at the speed of the wind rendering the head sail useless.

We motor sailed inside Milton Island:

Past Kingston through the shallows between Wolf and Amherst Island:

Under autopilot, we passed a magnetic anomaly:

The boat definately altered course 20 degrees under auto pilot!

Still only 6-7 knots of breeze from the north almost directly behind us.

We passed a dog buoy:

As we got closer to the SE tip of Prince Edward County, the winds started to fill in.

There is a channel a couple of hundred feet wide (K11 here):

A 600ft ship was approaching up from the west;

showed up on the AIS passing 400 ft south of us:

Once we were clear of the ship, we were able to alter course to the west, and turn the motor off

Winds had filled in to over 12 knots, and we were able to sail with full main and jib at 6+ knots.

Since the wind was from the north, the water was fairly flat.

Our speed picked up as we made the turn around Point Petre:

And again past Wicked Point:

Winds also picked up to 16-18 knots. The waves picked up a lot with fetch from Sandbands/Wellington/Brighton Bay. They would build more and were already 6-8ft!

Made the decision to turn the motor back on and head up toward shore and get out of the waves.

Even motoring one mile in shore made a huge difference in the waves!

After maybe two miles, we went back to sailing san motor.

Passed between Scotch Bonnet and Nicholson Islands:

Pointing the boat towards Brighton Bay and Pres'Quille:

We sailed along in the dark in comfort under auto pilot until almost Port Hope.

It has turned cold; our phones showed 6 degree C.
We had to layer up to keep warm.

Alas, at first light, the wind dropped to less than 8 knots. When our boat speed was less than 4 knots, it was back to motor sailing to keep our speed close to 6 knots.

Here we are off of Newcastle motor sailing with the main:

Pretty flat
Not much wind

By 10am, we were approaching Whitby, and it was time to take the main down:

...and into Whitby harbour:

Shot by Rita on shore:

Heading into Whitby Yacht Club:

Tired to pull into Still Time's slip on dock 8 but the weeds prevented us from getting into it.
There is still 5ft of depth, but the motor really struggled to get us out of the weeds.