Cruising on the Nash 20

Like many others, we had a yen to cruise.  Having our first keelboat gave us our first opportunity to find out what cruising was like.  It seemed an opportunity we should seize.

So one summer Saturday we loaded our boat with food and clothes and sleeping bag, and set off for ten glorious days exploring Lake Simcoe.  I will admit to feeling a little nervous at the odd colour of the sky that morning, but Richard, eager for adventure, was convinced whatever it was would pass and we would be fine. We finished getting ready, cast off our lines, nosed out of the  marina and started our sail up Cooks Bay toward the more open waters of the lake.

There are a few things you should know about Lake Simcoe.  It is one of those big small lakes; large enough that you can get lost without a chart, small enough that you are rarely out of sight of one shore or another.  It is a good lake to explore, with islands and bays and a good sprinkling of parks and marinas.  It is also comparatively shallow, and in a storm quickly develops a nasty chop; strong wind can move the water from one side of the lake to the other, so that some areas become shallower than charted and others deeper.

We set off with a good wind, sailing briskly.  For our first stop we had chosen a small bay that, according to the chart, was close enough to reach in less than a day and relatively sheltered from most directions.  Things were settling into a pleasant rhythm with several more hours of sailing to look forward to when I looked up and saw the storm coming up the big bay we were sailing past.

I guess the good thing was that we had warning.  It was an awesome sight, rain pouring from dark clouds, thunder booming and lightning flashing.  We had just enough time to get the sails down and start the outboard before it hit; then I retreated into the cabin with the GPS, which, not being marine, was not waterproof.  From the relative dryness I called out directions to Richard, quickly becoming soaking wet in the cockpit.  The storm finally passed just about the time we turned into the bay we had picked to anchor in.

We motored in carefully, found a good spot, and got settled.  Richard was wet, and we were both tired and stressed.  Looking for comfort, we pulled out the stove to make a cup of tea.  And that’s when we learned one more thing about our boat.  It leaked.  The matches that we had carefully stowed away were soaked.  Not to mention, as we quickly found out, anything not stored in our plastic bins.  The rain had poured down the inside as well as the outside of our cabin walls.

What to do?  There was a store not far away – but we were travelling without a dinghy, and it was a little far for swimming.  Not to mention that we were chilled already.  We looked around.  Cottagers in that area often take a dinghy across the bay to the store, and luckily, not far away, there was a couple passing not far away who were doing just that.  We hailed them.  They looked a little nervous of this strange, wet couple – but they did come close enough for us to ask if they had matches.  Fortunately for us, they did, and having decided we were harmless they left a dry box with us.   We were very grateful.

It took us two days to dry out.  Two damp windy days, with the rain drizzling down and the wind gusting noisily.  We hauled out tarps and put them up over most of the boat so we could dry out underneath, and spent our days watching to make sure the anchor stayed set, and hunting out the leaks and stopping what we could.  Then – the sun came out again!  We could have turned back, I suppose, but for some reason it didn’t occur to us.  Instead we downed tarps, upped anchor and set off again for the north end of the lake.

The sun was out, but the wind was still strong.  We sailed, using our chart and compass and keeping a sharp lookout for buoys.  There were not many other boats out that day – discouraged by chop and wind no doubt.  We sailed briskly on, entering new territory for us.  The sailing was hard, but it was fun.

Until the rudder broke off.  Or partially broke off.  Meaning that it was both unusable and difficult to detach.  And suddenly, not far from our destination, we were being pushed toward the hard stuff at the edge of the water…

Richard hauled and jiggled and pulled mightily on the rudder, trying to get it right off -it was swinging around, pushed by the waves, and steering the boat all over the place.  At the same time we needed to get the sails down quickly, so that we would not get blown further into dangerous waters.  Since we didn’t have the luxury of having a furling jib, that meant that I had to get myself up to the bow, the plunging, heaving, splashed-by-water bow, and pull that sail down.  You do what you have to, so wrestle it down I did, kneeling, scared, on the slippery deck and conversing with any and every force that might help me.  Praying…

By the time we could look up from our individual struggles we were drifting in over underwater rocks.  It’s a very good thing you can steer with an outboard engine!   As soon as he had managed to get the rudder out of the way Richard got it started.  With the rudder lying useless in the cockpit he steered us away from the rocks and into safer waters.  We made our way to a marina with a gas pump but no space for us to dock(we had not expected to use the engine quite so much – making sure we had fuel suddenly seemed very important) and then to a berth across the channel.  Then we needed to figure out what to do next.

Every place has its everything store, the place that people go to when they need “stuff”.  Here we have Canadian Tire.  In spite of its name, it is one of those hardware stores  that carry all kinds of things for those accustomed to doing things for themselves, whether they’re fixing a car, a house, a barn or a boat, and you could find one in most towns.  So we found our way to the nearest Canadian Tire store, and hunted through it for parts to put our rudder back on the boat.  In the end we found some sturdy gate hardware that would do what we needed.

It took Richard a couple of hours to remove old bits, clean up and install our temporary fix.  I spent those hours sitting as far forward as I could on the bow with all kinds of things piled beside me, so that the bow dipped and the bottom attachment for the rudder stayed out of the water.  And then, all things considered, we decided that we would stay where we were overnight.
The rest of our cruise was comparatively calm.  We found a nice little corner in a sheltered bay and shared it with a few other boats.  We found a nice marina with showers and a pool, and dropped in there briefly.  We met an older gentleman who had done a lot of work on his boat and spent lots of time on the lake, and listened to what he said about the best route back, given wind and wave conditions.

Then we followed his advice, and had a good sail back, stopping over night behind one of the larger islands on the lake.  We decided to end our cruise a day early when we heard that more heavy rain was on the way, and headed directly back to our home berth the next day.  There we bedded our boat in under tarps at the dock so that we would not have to dry her out inside the next time we came back.

That is why we spent that winter beefing up and repairing and repainting, so that the next time we went cruising we would not have to worry about getting wet.  Or losing our rudder again.  Or any of that kind of thing.  At least until the next boat…

Our First Keelboat: Nash 20

Our third boat was a Nash 20.  You might be noticing a pattern here, each boat a little bigger than the last.  We found her at a local Marina, sitting on a trailer in the yard with a ‘for sale’ sign on her.   Next to most of the other boats there she looked small; but she was in our price range, had a cabin, and a cockpit, and beside the Sea Spray she looked plenty big enough for us.  She had a crank-up swing keel, which meant that she could be trailered anywhere we had a mind to take her.  For a couple of winters we trailered her back and forth between marina and town each weekend, so that we could work on her in the comfort of our shop.

She came with a slip in the marina, and so we kept her there.  The marina was on Lake Simcoe, close to where we had been launching the catamaran and we were used to sailing in that area.  Once again, we went sailing every chance we got.  We started off with day sails, around the Bay and outside it, as far as we could go in whatever time we had.  Chart on hand, we extended our sailing area little bit by little bit.

The Nash 20 was opening new horizons for us – we had a cockpit, a small cabin with a sleeping area, storage and  a Porta Potti, and a small outboard on the stern to get us in and out of the marina.  We supplemented that with a camping stove and a small cooler, found a way to attach bins for food and clothes in the cabin, and began to think about cruising.

So when our summer holiday came we made more ambitious plans. We planned our first cruise, just the two of us, while our children were away pursuing their own interests.   Our destination, to be reached in stages, was the upper end of Lake Simcoe.  Our equipment, aside from the usual safety equipment, included a chart, a compass and an old, non-waterproof GPS which I had to take into the cabin with me when it rained – and rain it did.  It was not the kind of cruise that you might picture if you were an avid reader of some sailing magazines, but it was an introduction to the realities of cruising.  We encountered squalls and travelled on rough, windy days – as well as enjoying hours of beautiful sailing and finding peaceful anchoring spots along the way.

It rained very heavily on the first day of that first cruise  and we discovered every place on the boat that leaked – and there were a lot of them.  It was so bad that even our matches, stored safely inside the cabin, were soaked.  That evening, desperate for a cup of tea, we startled two people travelling in their runabout past our anchored boat by calling to them “Do you have any matches?”  Then we learned how kind complete strangers can be.

Those leaks led to some of my first experiences in really working on boats; that winter we went through the boat fixing leaks, lubricating the swing keel mechanism, strengthening the chainplates (where the rigging that holds the mast up attaches to the sides of the boat’s hull), fixing soft patches on the deck and painting the deck and cockpit with a non-skid paint.  Our second winter we got even more ambitious – after many hours of patching and sanding we painted the hull a glorious, shiny red using two-part epoxy paint.

Another first – we tried doing the occasional race.  However our boat was much slower than all the others and the race often finished before we could; after a while we considered it an achievement to get to the finish line before the buoys marking it had been removed!  Still our attempts at racing taught me more about sailing – instead of sailing in whichever directions was most convenient, I began to learn to sail close to other boats, the intricacies of who had right of way in different situations and how to pick a course that would take me  to and around buoys and markers as fast as possible.

I quickly learned that sailing a small keelboat was quite different from sailing a small catamaran.  For one thing, tacking was quicker, and I did not have to use the jib to help the bow go around.  For another, I no longer needed to hike out over the side to keep both hulls in the water.  I missed the speed, but enjoyed the pleasure of sitting in a dry cockpit, and not needing to wear a wetsuit to stay warm.   Having a cockpit also made it much easier to take turns at the helm, giving me more opportunities to be on the tiller and feel more directly the way the boat responded to the wind and waves.

Our short cruises and occasional races took us sailing in many different kinds of weather and circumstances, broadening my experience.  I did not always find it comfortable, but at least I was with an experienced sailor and learning from him.  As I became more experienced we sailed further and longer.  We explored new waters and I began to learn how to read a chart and sail by the compass.  And now that we were cruising I began to learn the intricacies of dropping anchor safely and how to come in to a dock.

Above all, more hours sailing meant more practice; more practice meant continuing to learn and to develop both more comfort and more skill.   Although there was still a lot more to learn…

Learning To Sail on a Small Catamaran

Our second boat was a small catamaran – a 15’ Sea Spray. It is a small catamaran first developed, built and sailed in North America 40 years ago, and the boats are still actively sailed and raced. It is much more commonly found on the west side of the North American continent; since we sailed in Ontario we only ever saw one other on the water.

Why did we buy this boat? It all started when we went to Florida for a family holiday, and rented a Hobie cat for a couple of hours. It was a beautiful sunny day, the wind was moderate, and we had a lot of fun speeding over the waves. We gave the boat back at the end of our allotted time with regret. and the feeling of pleasure we had enjoyed lingered on in our memories. That may have been why we began scanning the boat-for-sale ads in the local paper.

One day we saw the ad for the Sea Spray. We didn’t know anything about the boat, but the price was within the limits of our budget that made it worth taking a look at. After all, there was no harm in looking. So we made the phone call, met the boat and owner, and somehow within a very short period of time became the new owners of a small, elegant, blue-hulled catamaran. We trailered it home and parked boat and trailer in our backyard until we could take it sailing.

We launched it for our first sail from the park we had used for launching Old Tubby. Our first outing was blessed with good wind and we quickly found ourselves flying along and venturing further than we had before. Then there was a loud crack, and we were minus minus most of one of the two daggerboards. We sailed back to the launching area somewhat more carefully, and went home to make a new daggerboard so we could go out again the next weekend.

Over time we broke more daggerboards, usually when we were sailing fast; finally we made them out of marine plywood, wrapped in fibreglass for strength and increased waterproofing – those lasted. For our second season we fit the boat with a new trampoline; later in that year we had to replace some of the rigging, which was starting to show signs of strain. Other than that we simply kept it clean and maintained it, and sailed it every chance we got.

We sailed most summer weekends around Cooks Bay on Lake Simcoe. There we learned the ins-and-outs of keeping both hulls as flat as possible while sailing fast, and when the wind/wave combination was likely to make sailing more challenging than fun. On a catamaran it’s important not to bury one hull, or too much of it, under the water – water acts as a very good brake when that happens. Then that part of the boat slows while the rest keeps going – usually up into the air. I was anxious to avoid that! Most of the time we sailed as fast as conditions would allow, enjoying the little cats ability to sail past much larger monohull boats when conditions were right. Those two slim hulls helped the boat sail easily; it was only if the wind dropped completely that we were reduced to lying along them and paddling in to wherever we had launched from. And even that was not particularly hard work.

Its size and lightness meant that the catamar was very easy to tow on its trailer. At the Toronto Boat Show we met other small catamaran owners, and they told us about going boat camping, which inspired us to try our version. We did not so much travel on the boat as travel with the boat, taking hert with us when we went camping outside Collingwood so we could sail the beautiful blue waters around Thornbury.

There was one disadvantage we had to deal with right from the start – a small catamaran tends to be a wet boat., and we were sailing in cold waters. We bought wetsuits shortly after we bought the boat, and that helped us stay warm. But there was not much space for carrying things, and we never did find a good, dry way to carry lunch on board. In the end we just came back to eat lunch wherever we had launched.

We did learn that it was possible to sail the boat hard enough to damage it without realizing that the damage was happening. One glorious day, when we had been flying through the water with our wake rising up rooster tails behind us, we came back, put the boat on the trailer, and discovered that the beam that the mast was mounted on had rotated. A little longer, and we might have been minus the mast, which would have made it a little difficult to keep sailing!

Sailing the Sea Spray as often as we did and as fast as we could did a lot to improve my skill and confidence. Most of the time I handled the jib (and learned the difference between tacking a catamaran and tacking a single-hulled boat), which took more strength and practice than it had on Old Tubby. Since keeping the boat balanced could mean the difference between flying along and being dunked, I learned to stay very alert to the changing wind and conditions and to move quickly side to side and inboard to outboard (yes, hanging off the side of the boat, feet tucked under a strap and hanging on to the jib rope). Since we were able to keep up with and even pass some ot the other boats, I learned how to apply the rules and etiquette of sailing with other vessels.

Then there came the day when we began to think about the pleasures of sailing further, and of enjoying a longer sailing season, maybe even doing a little cruising…

Old Tubby – The Unsinkable Boat

The first boat I went sailing in was known, usually affectionately, as “Old Tubby”. Old Tubby was a Durafloat, safe, dry and unsinkable, and designed, so they said, to be sailed, rowed or motored. Since we had no motor we sailed or rowed, or rather sailed as much as possible and rowed only when a dying wind caught us still out on the water.

We bought Old Tubby from friends, inexpensively, and towed her away from her land-berth behind their house. She was a very simple boat, and in many ways perfect for someone just starting out. My husband, a sailor since childhood, had no trouble seeing how to rig her. And once we figured out where to launch her we began to find days to spend sailing. Or sometimes drifting. Occasionally rowing. It was a good thing we were on a lake, with no currents to contend with…

On a summer weekend we would choose a day, load mast, sails, oars and a little cooler into the car, attach the boat trailer, and – with or without children depending on their schedule – tow our little boat to the launch ramp at one our provincial parks. Once there we would find a spot to raise the mast and rig the sails while our children grabbed a few minutes to play and explore. Then we would detach the trailer from the car, back it into the water, float our little blue and white boat free and drop the rudder and daggerboard into place. With everything and everyone on board we would push off and sail away… Most of the time anyway. There were days when the wind was too light or blew from the wrong direction.

We started with short trips. Sailing on Old Tubby was mostly fun, sometimes frustrating and never the same twice. She never went very fast, or heeled very far – though occasionally some water did slop in over the side and wake up whoever had not moved to the high side fast enough. We were on a lake and the water was, to put it nicely, refreshing. On Old Tubby I learned to handle the jib while tacking and how to set the sails according to the wind and the boat’s direction. I could feel and see the relationship between boat, wind and water. I learned that shifting my weight in the boat could help her sail better, shifting to the ‘high’ side when the wind came over the side and sitting low in the middle when the wind was behind us.

Because the lower-end of the rudder flipped up and the daggerboard pulled up we could, and sometimes did, pull up on a beach to eat our lunch and let the children roam and play in the water. On a good day we could get to one of their favourite beaches, though if we lingered too long we would end up having to row back when the wind dropped in the late afternoon. So I learned to pay attention to local weather and conditions. Rowing was slow, at least for us, and it took a long time to cover the same water we had so easily sailed over earlier!

It took a decent wind to get the boat moving well, and light shifty winds were a recipe for frustration as the boat accelerated slowly and stopped quickly. On the other hand, when the wind picked up the mast tended to bend a touch and help spill the excess wind from the sails. So that was another lesson I learned – that every boat has a speed beyond which it will not go. And after a couple of summers it was speed that made us decide to look for a different boat. It all happened because we went to Florida on holiday and rented a Hobie Cat.

It’s About Sailing…

This blog will share some of my experiences learning to sail. Since sailing is one of those activities in which the learning never ends, this blog has the potential to continue for a long time, but the first posts will be about my early experiences in different boats, and what I learned from them.

Hope you’ll enjoy your visit here!