Catskill, NY

Friday, June 18, 2010

042-12.960 N
073-52.020 W

Ahoy from Catskill, NY!

We're currently in Catskill, NY where BlueJacket was neutered and became a motor vessel. Or, in more nautical terms, we had her mast pulled so that she can make it under the bridges along the Erie canal. On Wednesday we motored and then had a great sail up the Hudson river to to Catskill, which is about 25 miles from Hyde Park. Unlike our passage to Hyde Park, where we had the current with us for most of the trip, we had 1-2 kts of current against us. When you're dealing sailboat speeds, this adds up to a lot. Thankfully we had the wind behind us, or it could have been a very slow trip.

We pulled into Hop-o-Nose marina, which is one of the few locations where you can have a mast pulled before entering the Erie canal. We had our mast pulled 2 years ago at this marina, so we knew the operation, but to those who have never seen them do this before, it's quite a unique experience. Most modern marinas utilize a truck based crane to pull the mast out and deposit it on land. Not here! At Hop-o-Nose they have a 100+ year old crane that's fixed in place. They carefully position your boat and then pull the mast out. Then, while the mast is still in the air, you move your boat to another dock and they drop the mast onto stands on the dock that you had been tied to. Next they detach the floating dock with the mast from the main dock and pull it around to the travel lift where they lift your mast off of the floating dock and deposit it on land! Well, it works...

Getting the mast ready to be pulled is a lot of work as you have to strip the sails and all of the lines. Then once it's out, there's a lot of work to get it ready to ship. Most boats mount their mast on stands on top of their boat, but we ship the mast via truck to where we're going to have it re-stepped (installed). BlueJacket has a carbon fiber mast which is 62' long and would overhang both ends of the boat by 11'. When you're uplocking through the canal locks, there are strong currents which torque your boat all around and there's a good chance that we'd bash the mast into the wall. The repair job on that would cost more than the shipping cost, so we shipped it. I'm sure that we way over-prepped the mast and boom by wrapping it in closed cell foam and then wrapping that with plastic wrap, but it gets there safe and sound without any damage.

Since we're only about 2 1/2 hours from home, we're going to rent a car and drive back to Marlboro for the weekend to check out the house and to swap some gear. We had planned on doing this and this location made it very convenient. We'll be back to the boat on Sunday and then we'll head to Waterford, NY which is the start of the Erie canal.

-- Geoff

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For the cruiser: Hop-o-nose charges $6/ft to pull the mast and $1.50/ft for dockage. Some of the docks have 30A, but those further up river only have 15A. We use LockView Marina and Transport to ship the mast. If they can combine your shipment with another, it's $1300 to ship, but if they have to do a separate trip, it's $1800.

Log ID: 1361