Near Amsterdam

Friday July 19th, 2013
42 54.986 N
74 08. 345 W

Very hot and busy day. Today's lesson - plan your own day.

Our new friends decided to leave at 8 AM and head for a marina in Amsterdam. We said "us too" and so off we went. In the first couple of miles we needed to navigate a "flight" of 5 locks. Each lock provided about 30' to 35' of lift. Does not sound much, but it seems a lot when you enter the lock and look up. For each lift, Deidre was positioned at the bow, I was on the stern. We both held lines and needed to keep the boat parallel to the wall. It was hard work (our boat weights 65,000 lbs) and by the 5th lock, Deidre was buggered and her back was hurting. Mind you the weather was very hot and humid.

Approaching a lock

We needed more appropriate fenders to protect the boat in the locks and had picked out a supply place a few miles up the Mohawk River (Which serves as part of the canal). Their dock looked a bit wonky so we called and were assured all was well and there was about 14' of water. We took an hour or so to buy two new "ball" fenders and get a pump out.

I admit my departure was a bit sloppy. The chart showed deep water right up to where the dock seemed to be located. But my turn was a bit wide and by the time I figured it out we were well aground in deep mud. Standard procedure is to stop, put the engines in slow astern and wait for the props to dick us out. After 5 or 10 minutes the procedure seemed to work OK, but just as we got out of the mud the starboard engine alarm made its presence felt. I shut down the engine and proceeded on one engine into deep water, and headed for the engine room. Then Deidre announced the port engine was 20 degrees over normal, so faced with two overheating engines we decided to anchor mid river..

View of the lock damn  from the boat

Back in the engine room I opened up both raw water strainers and, no surprise, they were both totally clogged with mud. Took 15 minutes to clean them in a bucket and have them back in place. Both engines started OK, although the starboard engine was a bit reluctant.

When I had removed the strainers I had reopened the through hull fittings and let the river water flood in. This is a bit messy, partially flooding the ER bilge, but I was concerned that the thru hulls could also be blocked, and the bilge pump would deal with 95% of the water. Unfortunately the bilge pump did not clear the water. So now we had a new problem to resolve.

I took the pump off the hose and it pumped well, so the problem was the hose. We have a small snake  on board and used it to probe the hose. It definitely hit something, and cleared it, I have no idea what it could be, but now we had the water out of the ER.

On the Mohawk River

We resumed our journey with happy engines. But shortly thereafter, the Furuno chart plotter "ran out of map". The map for the Furuno chart plotter is supplied by C-Maps. I had called them a month ago to check what chip we had and if it would cover our proposed route, and was assured that it did. But it did not. I immediately called them again, and was advised by a different person that the chip we had only covered New York "east of Syracuse" and Canada " east of Montreal". So we ordered a new chip to be express mailed to Oswego.

Our "Polar Navy" chart plotter runs on a personal computer in the pilot house and is our back-up, so we retreated downstairs and out of the hot wind. The rest of the day was OK and uneventful, until we got to the last lock before the target marina. It was 6:20 PM and the lock was "closed". This surprised us, but it serves us right for not doing our own planning. Our only practical choice was to tie to a wall in a rather "industrial" location. There are now a series of thunder storms passing.

A flood gate

Saturday morning: I cannot believe Collingwood lost. And as for the cricket team!