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  Adrift with all sail up in the center of the east end of Lake Erie

We are becalmed. Wind had been westerly about 10 knots but recently it dwindled and eventually became completely calm. PRIDE II sits as a preverbal painted vessel on a painted sea, with all sail set, but all hanging flat with no billowing at all. Now I contemplate the next step to take...or not to take.

PRIDE II's transit of the remaining pilot area of the St. Lawrence River went uneventfully. The subsequent pilots between Quebec City and Montreal came and went with good humor and a sincere appreciation for the ship and her crew. The strategy finally implemented for dealing with being ahead of schedule for getting pre-arrival Seaway inspection was to anchor at Montreal. So the crew had a full night's rest before experiencing the locks.

It was a week ago when the first seaway Lock experience for most aboard occurred. To begin, there was preparing the ship for the locks...in PRIDE II's case it was simply setting up two dock lines, one forward and one aft, as well as placing two wooden squared timbers at each rigging channel, hung from the shrouds, to act as skids for the ship to ride upon as the water level rose in the locks. Then it was to board the last river pilot to guide PRIDE II the last 5 nautical miles from her Montreal anchorage to the first lock.

News Flash:

It is now 1300 and a very light wind from the northeastern quadrant has crept in. We have hauled out the boom with the boom preventer (PRIDE II's extreme mast rake requires the use of the boom preventer to haul the boom out past the stern quarters).  The squaresail yards have been braced back to near square to the ship and the studding sail boom is being rigged to set the studding sail.

Back to the log:  Once in the first lock (St. Catherine's Lock), up PRIDE II went. At the top she was inspected by the Seaway Inspector while the pilot bid us bon-voyage. The inspection took 15 minutes and we were soon on our way again, unassisted by pilot. Locking PRIDE II through the St. Lawrence Seaway Locks is a simple procedure laced with moments of stress. To set the scene, for PRIDE II to go up or down a lock requires she enter the lock. For up-bound transits, it is like going into a boxed canyon almost three times PRIDE II's beam and about 6 times her sparred length and almost as high sided as her course yard is above water (or about 55 feet for the lock walls verses about 65 feet for the course yard). Once inside the lock, the vessel is maneuvered alongside a wall to receive hand-lines that are attached by the crew to the two dock-lines for the lock crew to haul up. Because of the vertical element of the lead of the dock-lines, it is vital that the dock-lines be lead through "closed" fairleads aboard PRIDE II. This is easy for the after line as it passes through a closed chock in the bulwarks. Up forward we cannot use the anchor-hawse-holes. Instead we rig a very large industrial snatch-block lashed to the bowsprit just inboard of the bulwarks. The dock-line is brought back to the anchor windlass for mechanical advantage. We do not have any mechanical advantage back aft, but this is not important as the water in the locks develop currents at the surface, which press PRIDE II against the lock wall.  Four anti-chaff "skids" are placed on the mainmast and foremast rigging channels. In the case of the main rig channel, the location of the skid is amidships because the normal position of a two-masted schooner mainmast is near the middle of the ship's hull; this "center of the length of the ship" skid creates a tendency for PRIDE II to have her stern swing into the lock wall while her bow swings away. This phenomenon is due to PRIDE II's underwater shape that puts most of her "underwater" hull aft of her mid-line with much less than half her underwater hull forward of the midline. With more underwater hull aft of the mainmast rigging for the current to push upon than available up forward, it stands to reason the ship's stern is pushed while the bow swings out. To counter this current-induced reaction, we need the mechanical power to hold the bow near the wall, hence preventing the stern from contacting the lock wall and scraping up the lock wall as the water rises.

To assist with these forces, the lock masters generally know where to place PRIDE II in the lock to minimize the side current. Even so, there can still be moments where the best of intentions just do not prevent the tendency for the ship to swing her stern into the wall. The anchor windlass, with 6 crew working harder than when they haul back the anchor, manages to overcome the lock currents. But it can be stressful when this battle is joined. For the most part, the seven locks in the St. Lawrence River between Montreal and Lake Ontario do not present much trouble because of the way the locks are filled. But in the Welland Canal, which crosses the Niagara Escarpment, seven of the eight locks present a lot of stress as each is much more turbulent as they are filled, thus causing PRIDE II's stern to swing close to the wall with the risk of being scraped as the water fills despite the efforts of the crew. Last evening we went through those seven locks and they all required calling the "stand-by watch" on deck to assist with cranking the bow to the wall. Even so, we managed to do a little scraping that will require some painting. But I am drifting far out of sequence...

We arrived Ogdensburg on schedule at 0800 Wednesday, July 5. Customs came aboard and all was well. Then the cook, Ann Costlow, and deckhand Leslie Allen took off to go food shopping. Then the laundry crew headed off. Then the fuel truck arrived. In between, the rest of the crew did maintenance. Part way through this busy day, Customs came back to point out that we (me) had violated the new post 9/11/2001 terror attack regulations for entering the USA from foreign.

Specifically the form we used to email the required 96 hour vessel pre-arrival report was no longer accepted. Instead it was required that we go "live and on line" via the Internet to the specially set up government "server" and fill out the documents electronically. From now on the office will have to fill this form out as PRIDE II can email but cannot connect to the Internet directly. We were also told that IF the ship was considered a "commercial" vessel, we would need to be paying a fee to the government to the tune of $360 USD some 15 times a year. They were asking me if I knew about the fee. I had never heard of this fee. I knew about the annual $30 USD fee to Customs but not the so called SBP fee. Since I was ignorant of this larger fee, I was directed to talk to someone "higher up" and spoke with Mr. Mason of Ogdensburg's Customs branch. Talking to him made it plain that not only did I not know about this special and extraordinarily expensive fee, but that he was not certain PRIDE II was required to pay this fee. After a lengthy conversation about various facts pertaining to the ship's official documentation papers provided by the US Coast Guard Vessel Documentation Office, Mr. Mason decided a call to Washington, D.C. was required. He promised to get back to me shortly. In the end, a lawyer representing the Government said that despite the ship's official document indicating three classes of "Endorsements" (Coastwise, Registry and Recreational) none of these designations could be used in any given instance of activity of crossing the boarder from foreign. That is, if the ship was used at any time to market commercial opportunities for the State of Maryland, the owner of the ship, it meant she was to be considered commercial by Customs, even if she was not actually in a commercial endeavor (i.e. no cargo, no passengers) when she crossed the boarder. If PRIDE II was determined to be commercial, she would need to pay the fee. I was left with the warning that Mr. Mason was not going to investigate any previous crossings for violations nor was he going to act on the violations of this arrival from foreign...but he suggested that I get things in order for the arrival in Cleveland after visiting our next port of call, Toronto, Canada.

Needless to say I informed the Pride, Inc. office and this set up a series of phone calls to other tall ship operators as well to Cleveland since that was our first American port of call after Toronto. It is also the first Tall Ship Festival Port of the summer and several vessels would be arriving from foreign ports. After a couple of hectic days on the phone, Captain John Beebe-Center, my partner, found several anecdotes and one very knowledgeable government regulation source that cleared things up...at least as far as Cleveland was concerned. To wit, the fee is only applicable to vessels over 300 Gross Registered Tons (PRIDE II is only 97 GRT). That the 96 hour vessel pre-arrival report requirement was considered "met" in Cleveland because of the official status of the ship as part of the Cleveland Tall Ships Festival. Therefore the electronic on-line Internet filing would not be required. I will endeavor to share the quoted regulation with Mr. Mason in hopes of relieving him of any further confusion in the future, especially as I would like to be able to bring PRIDE II back to Ogdensburg in the future.

Why Ogdensburg? Ogdensburg is the first and last American port that is also a US Customs Port of Entry between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic. Hence it can be useful during trips into and out of the Great Lakes from any Atlantic port. I hope Mr. Mason will find my intention to share this information with him helpful. 

Speaking of Ogdensburg, it is Ogdensburg Port Authority that enables PRIDE II to make a quick "in and out" stop while en-route to or from the Great Lakes. Mr. William Payne is the chief executive and has on three occasions now been willing and very helpful to PRIDE II with these whirlwind stops. His staff is very helpful as well. In return for the favor, I welcomed his staff for a look aboard and give interviews to the local newspapers. I give sincere thanks to Ogdensburg for the privilege of using their port for logistical reasons.  

The laundry crew and the food shopping crew were all back aboard by 1600 hours and we got underway soon after. As we motored up river against the prevailing SW'rly wind and I contemplated the dying daylight and the distance to go to Lake Ontario as well the 1000 Islands area we would soon enter, but not be able to see before dark, I decided that we had time to anchor for the night. So we did, in Chippewa Bay around 2100 hours. On our way to the anchorage, we got a handsome and teasing taste of the nature of the 1000 Islands. It wetted the crew's appetite for seeing more of those 1000 Islands the next morning. All were quick to turn-to for hauling back the anchor at 0600 hours Thursday morning July 6 and all spent the morning gawking at the handsome houses built on the many islands PRIDE II passed by as she made her way to Lake Ontario. Some of those houses are built right at the waters edge! Also, the wide variety of architecture spanning more than 100 years was quite interesting to compare.

At 1300 hours the same day, right after lunch, PRIDE II was just into Lake Ontario with a west wind of about 10-14 knots. The crew jumped-to with a will and all sail was set and off PRIDE II went sailing close-hauled on the wind for Toronto. After some seven tacks over the following 30 hours, PRIDE II had sailed the length of Lake Ontario into the harbor of Toronto and just about up to her assigned dock.

Toronto was fun for all aboard. It is a lively place during summers with activities all along the waterfront as well as in town. With time off given to the crew in shifts, there was plenty for all to choose from--movies, museums, art shows as well the shops, coffee houses, bars, and more. The ship was open to the public Saturday afternoon right after arrival and she hosted a Maryland Port Administration dockside reception Sunday afternoon. The unique thing about this reception was the presence of the ship's TV showing the World Cup final game between France and Italy.

My hope of getting more sailing in between Toronto and the Welland Canal was thwarted by squally conditions and changing wind direction. We got a lot of rain but not much wind when it did blow. After wasting time trying to sail, I finally decided to push and get on our way and into the lock system that climbs the Niagara Escarpment via a series of seven locks each of which rises some 55 feet. On occasion I have experienced a fast transit of the locks of around eight hours. This time it took about 12 hours.

My goal today is to sail as much as possible before having to start engines to make tomorrow's deadline for "entering" the USA again from Canada and attending to the safety inspections required for participating in the Cleveland Tall Ships Festival. As I have been writing, the wind has filled in lightly from the east and has since shown some tendency to veer to the SE'rly. This direction would help speed up PRIDE II by providing her with a beam reach on the way to Cleveland. But there are also reports of thunder/rain/wind squalls predicted for later today due to the recent cold front that passed to the south last night turning around and retreating north again as a warm front. 

Cheers,
Captain Miles