North Channel Adventure

7/24

We started our trip to the North Channel seriously delayed - Chicago had the heaviest rainfalls since records began, violent thunderstorms and a very uncomfortable heatwave. We had planned to sleep on Caprice the night before the trip to be able to get far on the first day - however, the thunderstorms that night made that look like a bad idea. 

We only arrived at the boat at 1PM, and after provisioning, pumping out, and final farewells and kisses with the admiral, I left the harbor at 3PM. Unfortunately, wind was right on the nose, from the north. That would have been good to cross to Michigan, but since I took off late, staying on the Illinois coast was the only option.

 So, I motorsailed north, and at 9:30PM stopped at my winter storage place for the night. The trip had been so calm that I even grilled and had dinner at 7PM, while sailing. The night was peaceful and thankfully a little cooler than the sweltering day.

7/25 

The next morning I got up early to attempt to cross the lake. I had a cunning plan to sail not just east, but try to get as much north as possible, too. After leaving the harbor I quickly realized that pointing north was going to be very wet and uncomfortable, and decided to head almost straight east towards Holland, MI.

Still, the boat was rolling violently and burying the bow in the waves a lot. Too late did I realize that the hawsepipe for the anchor chain was open in the direction of the waves. Something else happened first which was much worse - suddenly without warning the large jib came loose. The clew ring had ripped off:

I went below to find the working jib, not exactly thrilled about changing roller-furling jibs with the bow shipping water quite regularly. Also, my tether doesn't reach all the way to the front, and it would have been dangerous. I was spared that decision when it turned out that the working jib wasn't even on the boat - in a fit of clearing up, I had moved it into the attic in Naperville and forgotten all about it.

But first, before failing to find the spare jib, I had to deal with the boat sinking - the forepeak had plenty water standing on the cabin sole, from aforementioned hawsepipe...

I decided to turn back to Winthrop Harbor for repairs. A few hours later - I meanwhile discovered that my wonderful English sailmaker neeedles were all rusty - I had effected repairs with new webbing. Unfortunately the new webbing is not as strong as the original one, so I had to double it.

By now it was again too late to cross the lake, and in any case the winds had diminished to nothing. Again, I headed north at 4PM, and by 6 was able to finally switch off the engine - a light southern breeze started and allowed us to crawl north under main and gennaker. Finally, I arrived at Racine.