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Hi guys,

I went on a big sailing trip in my weekender this summer. It's something I've been thinking about doing for a while, and since my wife is not comfortable on small boats I don't do very many overnighters. I live on a Great Lake, so really it was high time I did something like this. Plus I was getting bored always sailing in the same bay. So, I arranged with one of my buddies from work, to take two weeks off with the intention of simply sailing in one direction for several days and seeing how far we could safely pick our way around the shoreline. There's over a hundred nautical miles of lake in that direction, so plenty of opportunity for trouble as well as adventure. 

This weekender is about seventeen years old; and it's pretty much as-designed, except last year a new keel was added per the design of Paul Ricelli (respectfully remembered). One other modification, in response to demands by both of our wives, was a last-minute installation of an engine. I have not wanted to put an engine on this boat, preferring to rely on sailing ability to approach moorings and docks, and oars when there is absolutely no wind. HOWEVER. Rowing is awkward, because the action of rowing with two people in the cockpit takes up a lot of the non-rower's personal space, and also I find I do not like facing backwards having to look over my shoulder for long distances. I decided that I'd obey the letter of the law more closely than the spirit in this case, and purchased a 1940s "Neptune" motor with a whopping 1.7 horsepower. It only weighs twelve pounds, and its antique look (I think) doesn't detract too much from the look of the boat. Also, I found that it's such a cantankerous, yet reliable, old thing that running it is actually a lot of fun. It drives the boat about as fast as a row-er would. So for the sailing purist, it's OK because sailing is still the fastest way to get anywhere as long as there's wind for it. 

So, off we went. Our intention was to make great distances and have a lot to boast about. This proved not to be quite the case, as the relaxation of camping, as well as greed and laziness, restricted us to about four or five hours of sailing per day, between meals basically. Also we brought an inflatable dinghy (called "the Camper's Lament") which we used to ferry our stuff to shore and back each day. One guy slept in a tent; the other in the boat. We found that the sailing was very demanding, as we had decided to navigate traditionally (no GPS) and the norhern shore of our Great Lake, while offering the safety of smaller water in the lee of numerous islands, is also quite rock-infested. We found that we really needed to be sure of where we were. The islands look all the same and blend into one another from eye level. One day we spent the entire afternoon beating up the bay and only ended up about six miles from where we started. The next day we ventured offshore and made several miles in the deep-water channel outside the islands, and then a thunderstorm came up out of the South and menaced us in the open water, but also gave us the speed to beat the worst of it into the harbour we were looking for anyway. That was a bit of navigation I was proud of; moo se bay has a large marker on the shore marking the hole-in-the-wall entrance to a big shallow soft-bottomed bay. There is a route depicted on the chart that leaves a marker in the deep-water channel (marked by fixed lights) and shows a compass-bearing through shoals to the entrance. We were out of sight of the buoy but we could see the white blaze on the cliffs at the harbour entrance so we took a bearing with the hand-compass and were just able to hold that cou rse close-hauled as the rain started and the waves got bigger and bigger. I think the new keel might have saved us a lot of screwing around. Our target was a narrow channel between rocks that opened into a nice safe harbour. We whooshed into the harbour and decided to camp there for a couple of days. The day we left, we used the motor to bash our way into the wind, out of the harbour, sailed across an open reach between two big groups of islands, and found our previous camping spot via the "inshore" route, which required a lot of map-reading and tricky winds but was good sailing. We thought we were clever going out into the open lake and using lighthouses and compass bearings like the big boys, but the route back was less scary and more interesting, through the islands. The next day we poked our way back to our Yellowknife bay by sticking our nose down little passages and channels on the inside route using the motor for most of it, the first time we really used the motor the whole week other than when we left Moo se Bay. Into Yellowknife Bay, where our town lies at the end, we decided to camp one more time on an island there before making a grand entrance the next day. This didn't turn out as triumphant as we expected because the next day we woke to an utterly flat calm, and ended up putt-putting the last five miles on the little motor, which really earned its place on that trip after all. All in all, I figure we put seventy miles under the keel in about six days, even though as the crow flies we were really only ever about twenty-five miles from our homes. We burned about eight litres of fuel, about two gallons, which was fine because we had packed over twice that amount. Anyway, it was a challenging enough trip in this little boat, especially on Great Slave lake which is really an inland sea and suffers from extremely variable weather in the summer. We pushed our luck a little, but it did result in a pretty good adventure. We're going to do it again the year after next.

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Way ta go!!!

The pics are fantastic.  They look just like where I like to sail.  Your post only goes to reinforce my contention that weekender is the best cruising boat for Canadian Shield sailing, especially when you like to anchor in little hidey holes, and navigate similar small channels.  I would come with you guys next time, but I have similar water a couple miles from my farm.  

The more I learn and experience the more I think that weekender is a brilliant design.  It gives an adventurous sailor more options in more protected water at the least cost and bother than anything I have seen with a cabin.  Its the sailing that matters.  I hope that more people take the hint and get their boats out on adventures.

Al

Say, Keith, I got a few questions.

Looking at the map you show, did you have a lot of short tacking to do?  And, do you think the new keel helped a lot?  I expect that she tacks better in tight situations, but was that important where you were sailing?

I find that when I am trying to reach a destination on a northern lake, I am able to make  use of the favored tack to make headway with short off tacks to give more room to make up that ground.  Did you find that you didn't have to do much of that?

How was the anchoring?  I find that finding a place that isn't a great granite slab can be tough to find.

Was that as high as the sun gets around Yellow Knife?

If things work out for me next summer, I hope to hit Lake of the Woods next summer.  You cant tell the difference between Great Slave Lake and there most of the time.

Al

Hi Al,

My buddy had one of those "spot" devices that he brought along. You can see it in some of the pictures- it's a little orange box hanging on the port side of the mast. It "pings" a GPS location to an Email address. He's pilot and his wife makes him take it wherever he goes at work. We used it so our wives could watch our progress on their computers. It wasn't meant to be any use for navigation, but when I got home, I plotted all the "pings" on "foreflight" and got a rough map of our activities. This is a really crappy picture. I had to photograph the photograph off the screen of my Mac, because for some reason the file size on the original is so huge I can't post it on this forum.

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So you can see the big, long tacks we took on the way out of Yellowknife Bay, going South. The first camping spot is at 62 degrees, 19'31" N and that's the spot on the chart photo. You can see, the next day we spent doing the same thing, big zigzags to clear the mouth of the bay (we only sailed between about 1:00 and 5:00 each day- lazy) and ended up offshore. Where the track turns left into the islands, that's where we camped the second night. The next day you see us going back out offshore and reaching East outside of all the islands, in a big arc. The wind held steady from the south for a couple of hours and we made about ten miles in blue water. Then the wind died completely at the 114 06' 16"W point, and we bobbed there for half an hour while a huge squall came at us from the south. From there you can see us going East again, until our hand-bearing on the shore indicated we were on the safe road through the reefs. You can see us tracking straight to the shore and the distance between "pings" indicates a bit of the speed. That was where we entered "M00se Bay" and spent two days camping there. You can see when we left there we stuck inside the shoals and islands and while we did some short tacks it was mostly to get around islands and submerged rocks on the chart, which was thankfully very accurate. We ended up at the "day two" campsite and you can see the tracks intersect there. The next day we motored North and West through some tricky little channels. till we got into Yellowknife Bay, then sailed to the "day 1" campsite. The next day we sailed about halfway home, and then the wind died again so we motored the last 5 miles or so. You can see by the speed and frequency of tacks that the wind was mostly South-SouthEasterly for the whole week.

Someone onshore got a shot of us hauling south leaving the bay. You can see I spend a lot of time with the main reefed on big water. Don't like surprises.

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Anyway, the new keel? I notice it most during tacks. The boat swivels about her centre now, when before she tacked by throwing her butt outside the turn. So there isn't as much speed lost in a tack now. There is a slight reduction in weather-helm, but it's still pretty much the same boat. My friend, who I sail with often, agrees with me that it takes noticeably fewer zigzags to get down the bay. I would say it's partially due to less leeway, but also to faster tacking. In the big waves with such a light boat, she loses a lot of ground to each wave that comes on from the front, and with the new keel I find it easier to slither between the waves in a tack, instead of bashing over them. It's probably just the way that wind and waves build up down the bay. I don't know how much of this is due to the keel. I just feel, more than measure, a bit less "boring" performance, and less time wallowing and trying to build up speed in the big waves after coming about.

The places we found to anchor, were little coves and narrow bays, with some silt built up on the bottom. I used two anchors, tried to find places that were sheltered from the wind in more than one direction, and targeted areas with lots of grass and weed onshore, indicating soft bottom. I never beached the boat, although in M00se Bay I accidentally touched bottom and I could still walk all round the boat, about up to my thighs. We had a rubber dinghy folded up in the cabin for trips to shore. I don't think beaching would be a problem on the right beach, but I don't want to bang her up.

All those pictures with the sun in them were taken at night. The sun goes by to the south but climbs almost straight up. It goes down at night but not enough to make it dark. A couple of the dimmer photos were taken around 10:30 at night.

Yellowknife is still in the same "Boreal" forest as Lake of the Woods. Canadian Shield eh. But the trees are smaller and it's a bit drier on the ground. Lots of big, bald rock domes and very, very thin soil, so sometimes the tent guys had to be supplemented with piles of rocks.

Next summer I'm going to try her out with a CP-16 headsail. I think that might make her perfect. (ha ha)

Wonderful adventure! Thanks for sharing.

If you buy a new sail, make sure to have a set of reef points added.  I sailed my lapper through a high twenties gust with no problems, but if you decide you need to reef at the dock and you don't want to hank on a new sail, the points will be real handy.  The lapper is most handy in very light air.  I'm thinking about making a drifter for glassy days.  I'll make it out of a light plastic tarp and cut a lot of belly into it.  I'll make it super easy to drop just in case.  I made my bow sprit a foot longer than the plan called for so that I could play around like that.


I also find that I don't put in long days sailing because I too am lazy.  Most times I get going just before lunchtime and eat on the way.  I really enjoy evenings on the boat so I make sure to tie up early enough to be settled after dinner.  The first time I anchored out a mink swam by the side of the boat and I had to quick pull my fingers out of the water


Your map is strikingly similar to every other one I've seen from all manner of sailboats.  From that I would say that you are getting performance that doesn't need to be improved to windward.  

Thanks for the report and pics. 

Al

It's nice to re-live that sailing trip. I finally used the boat for the reason I built her. Also I think (soul-searching here) that I have gotten sick of rowing home when the wind dies, and I may have been avoiding sailing because of this. Maybe I have wanted than motor for a long time, and the trip gave me an excuse to get it without feeling guilty. The boat goes much faster under sail, which is good because she's a sailboat. But the motor moves her faster than rowing, and tinkering with a seventy-year-old motor is a lot of fun too.

Did you see the videos that Tom posted of "Spirit Wind"? I suspect that's a CP-16 headsail. I wouldn't use it all the time, but did you notice in some of the videos how when the mainsail was sheeted in, "Spirit Wind" took off like Jaws had grabbed her from underneath? I want MY boat to do that! She took off like a scalded ape, in not much wind either!

When I first reported about my lapper I wasn't kidding.  I was slack jawed at the difference.  I was thinking about having one made and it occurred to me that I am so happy with my rolly taskers, that I might check with them about making up a lapper for me.  They might take me seriously because I bet a lot of weekender owners would jump on one.  The compac working jib is a good fit,  but you have to run it up the forestay a bit to get a good sheeting angle.  

I'll look into rollly tasker this winter and let you know.

Al