Line Squall Hits our Wednesday Night Around the Bouys Race

January 2, 2012 — s/v Black Diamond

It was a beautiful summer July Wednesday night at the Port Credit Yacht Club in Mississauga near Toronto, on Lake Ontario.  About 25 or so boats came out to what was going to be another routine Wednesday night race, at least we thought. Great fun, turned in to even greater fun. Due to a line squall that hit the fleet.

It was pretty predictable for those that have been through one of these a few times. A dark cloud was quickly approaching, the wind completely died, then veered a full 180 degrees, the temperature dropped 5 degrees, and then it hit us. 30 knot winds sustained, gusting to almost 40 knots at times.

With the wind shifting a full 180 degrees after the first go around, the finish turned out to be an up wind finish. With boats tacking up wind, in heavy winds for the finish, it proved to be a tricky race, and just a little dangerous.

Have a look at this video it will prove to be both interesting and entertaining.

 

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Wild Sail on Lake Ontario, Delivery to Sackets Harbour, NY.

October 27, 2011 — s/v Black Diamond
Paul Benninger & I are delivering Black Diamond to Sackets Harbour on the US side near the St. Lawrence 24 hours away. We are leaving her there for winter service. We leave tonight at about 10pm ETA tomorrow 10pm. Sea state last night was 10 footers wind on nose, thank God, it clocked around wind on Starboad Quarter stern. Should be a nice ride.
Update: Top Surf Speed 12.9 knots! Passed Scotch Bonnet more than an hour ago. About 10 hours in.
Update: 3 hours from Main Duck, means we’ll pass Main Duck Island,  9 hours faster than the LO300 race last year with Spinnaker. We are obviously only white delivery sails today, sustained winds 30 knots, upto 10 footers.
UPDATE: Just hit 15.1 knots…Ed
UPDATE: Made it in record time, arrived 6:30pm,  21 hours, sails already taken down. Enjoyed a great dinner at Tin Pan Galley, my favorite restaurant!UPDATE: You can see our live track here.

SOME COMMENTS
Roller coaster ride. 14 ++ Kt. WoW.Displacement haul…. Not while Psycho Ed is captain. He is planing that sucker. – Enjoy Rob Rumble

I’m stuck in a hole (at my desk) – no wind doing 0 knots. Haven’t moved in hours. - Ric Doedens

While you are doing your warranty repairs in Sacket Harbor, maybe you want also to let them re-calibrate your instruments properly…LOL! - Ivan

Doing 1knt around a pool with a jack hammer but a nice view of the lake here on waters edge!!!! – Ken Bruce15.1 knots – that’s unbelievable !! – Fred Azouz

I know your joking Ivan, but it’s accurate. On GPS. Sustained speeds of 9-10 knots, those were surfing speeds. Record was in the Atlantic 19.5 knots surfing 25 footer in 60 knot winds. I have witnesses!  - Psycho Skipper Ed
My underwear confirmded that speed on the Ocean LOL – Craig Russell
Just hit 20 Kts on my mountain bike on a bike trail in Edmonton. Would rather be sailing. Fair seas and following winds. - Paul Thornton
Congratulations glad you guys are safe …..will miss you at pcyc saturday night!!! I’ll have a libation for you. – Ken Bruce
Glad you are safe!  - Ross Rodgers
Nice passage Ed.  Vmg is pretty good here tonight. 1 ltr of rum in 3 hrs!  - Glenn Butt
Congratulations to the Captain and crew ! Tania
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PCYC Director’s Race 2011

October 12, 2011 — s/v Black Diamond

The Annual Port Credit Yacht Club, PCYC Director’s Race takes place usually in October. This year we had perfect conditions, a beautiful sailing day. Director’s of the club race against the members, I might add, the members usually win! This year Black Diamond was fortunate enough to have 4 directors and the club manager aboard, along with Ken Bruce our star helmsman, and Director of PCYC’s Learn to sail program. We were doing pretty good, 2nd or 3rd in the fleet when we blew a jib halyard. It messed up our race, but not the great time we all had.

 

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Susan Hood Yacht Race 2011 Video

October 12, 2011 — s/v Black Diamond

June 3rd, 2011

This is the “Coolest Race on the Lake” and we mean both Cold and Hip type of Cool ! The water is still blistering cold after a long Canadian Winter. Hyperthermia could set in – within a couple of minutes, and a quick death to follow. This race takes us 75 miles on the rhum line from Mississauga, Port Credit, to the Burlington Bridge, to the Niagara River and back to the Port Credit Yacht Club in Mississauga. The race starts at 8pm, and most boats are back by early afternoon the following morning.

This was Black Diamond’s best showing in the 4 years we entered this race. Conditions were all over the place, from no wind most of the night, inching at about 1/2 a knot in winds from 1 knot or less, to moderate winds in light rain. The a heavy down pour – to a squall that hit us around the Niagara mark. Upwards of 50 knots of wind and sustained winds of over 30 knots. Then on the tail end of the squal as the winds clocked around 180 degrees – we were hit again. Ohh, and lets not forget the Snow and Hail in the middle of the lake for good measure.

We finished mid-fleet, due mostly to some R10′s and J105′s in our fleet did not finish due to the adverse conditions. Our boat is really an Ocean Performance Cruiser, with emphasis on Cruiser ! It likes the heavier stuff, and is a pig in most Lake Ontario Conditions.

Check out the 5 minute video below, this was posted to our YOU TUBE Channel.

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Port Credit Yacht Club Family Cruise to Fifty Point.

September 29, 2011 — s/v Black Diamond

The Port Credit Yacht Club Cruise Committee organizes many club cruises throughout the year. This is the first year for the club cruise committee to organize family centric cruises. Our family the Radonic’s volunteered for this task.

 

Fifty Point was the first such cruise. We had 17 boats with 24 children participate in this cruise. I won’t write much about it, if you watch the above video you’ll get the idea of how much fun it was. Check out the video above.

Special thanks to Ron Linden for making all the Pina Caladas, and Glenn Butt for the fire works show!

 

Cruise to TIM’s Toronto Island Marina was our second family cruise destination. Check out the video above.

 

 

The video above actually our first club cruise of 2011 and it was to Hanlan’s Point.

 

 

 

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Traveling Home, Wemps Bay and Home.

September 3, 2011 — s/v Black Diamond

Long trek home!

From Leek Island it is a 6 hours trek to Wemps Bay on Amherst Island past Kingston.

We stopped at the Kingston Yacht Club for 20 mins, re-fuel, fill water tanks, hose down cockpit, empty trash bags, buy dinghy fuel, oil. And were off.

Wemps Bay, Amherst Island.

Sun set in Wemps Bay on the west end of Amherst Island, east of Kingston, Ontario

Wemps Bay is our little secret. A very large bay enough room for dozens of boats on anchor. Large sandy beach, shallow enough that you can walk out about 300-400 meters. Soft sand on your toes the whole way out. Every time we have been here, we were the only ones here. Yes, Roxane makes bread here too.

We swam off the boat, had a nice sunset dinner. Then off to our friends boat by dinghy for cocktails.

Wemps Bay, Amherst Island, Swimming

We swam in the bay at sunset before dinner.

We woke at 5:30 am for a 6:30am departure to Cobourg.

We stopped mid afternoon a few miles offshore, and everyone of us on both boats jumped into the lake for a cool re-freshing swim. In 150 feet of depth. I did this in the ocean this spring in 5,000 feet, now that was spooky.

Kids relax on the dinghy on the fore deck during the long ride.

We arrived in Cobourg at 6:30pm, another pit stop, stretched our legs, empty garbage, Dinner out in Cobourg, ice cream and back on the boat. We departed at 9pm and hope to arrive in Toronto by 7am going through the night.

Alex enjoying some down time in the cock pit drawing on the long ride home.

There is suppose to be a storm tomorrow, and we did not want to get caught in it. Besides that I have a couple days of work on the boat unloading, cleaning and prepping for races on Tues & Wed, client cruises Thurs & Friday. What a busy schedule.

Signing off for now.

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Leek Island, 1000 Islands

September 2, 2011 — s/v Black Diamond

About a 1/2 hour sail from Gananoque, is Leeks Island, Aka Thawratway Island. A really nice mooring hole, with 5 mooring balls for boats to tie up to. Our friends moored, we anchored.

Enjoyed the beach for a couple hours as you can see here. Alex loves driving the dinghy, and Thomas loves swimming.

We had a wonderful dinner on the boat at anchor, and a swim off the back, swim platform.

The next morning on our way home slowly.

Our view from our cockpit.

Leeks Island

Anchorage in Leeks Island.

 

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Gananoque, Ontario

September 1, 2011 — s/v Black Diamond

 

We spent an evening in Gananoque, strolled the town, had dinner in a Checkoslovakian Resturant, Schnitzel… Not nearly as good as Hungarian. The kids spent the day fishing, and Alex caught a 24+ inch Muskie and a Turtle with a net. This kids played with it for a bit before it was released. I was bitten by the Muskie while trying to remove the hook from his mouth. Believe it or not, it was caught with a small kids toy fishing rod.

Alex's new pet for the next couple of hours, before release.

Luca and Alex fishing in their Dinghy.

Andrew & Alex fishing off the dock.

24" Muskie Caught by Alex with a little kids fishing rod off the dock.

Was bitten by the Muskie while trying to remove the hook.

 

 

 

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Anchored in the Navy Islands.

August 31, 2011 — s/v Black Diamond

 

We dinghy boated, hiked, swam off the boat many times and baked bread! So far we anchored out a couple of nights in some beautiful bays in the Navy Islands. This was the first overnight anchorage for our friends, I showed them how to set their anchor alarms so they could have a good nights sleep without worrying about anything. There are a number of ways you can do this, using your depth alarm, GPS drift alarm or setting up a security perimeter with your radar. If land enters the security zone, it means your drifting into land, and an alarm will sound to wake you from your sleep. The most common one that people use is the GPS drift alarm or commonly called the anchor alarm. I set this to .05 of a nautical mile on the Raymarine chart plotter. This is about 350 feet. Sounds like a lot but not really. If you let out 150 feet of anchor rode, that would create a swing diameter of 300 feet. My friends decided to set theirs to .02, they rather be safe than sorry. In my opinion this will keep you up all night with false alarms and mad dashes to the cock pit to see whats going on. I have done that many a times, that is why I also installed a repeater of the chart plotter on the salon TV, with a remote keyboard, so I can also control the chart plotter from down here, without having to run to the cock-pit.

However, this was a very secure anchorage, no tides, currents, protected and with very good holding. I decided to turn off my chart plotter and save the electricity all together, and get some good sleep. This comes with lots of experience anchoring in Georgian Bay and the Bahamas. You would not believe some of the conditions we had to anchor in. Search Anchoring on our blog for additional stories.

 

Black Diamond anchored in a bay near Club Island.

Roxane made all kinds of amazing bread on the boat.

Thomas and I enjoyed the hikes in the island provincial parks.

Our three boats anchored at the Club islands, Sea Wolf, Fortune's Favour and Black Diamond.

Alex swimming of the boat at anchor.

Thomas also enjoys jumping off the boat.

Our friends the Benninnger's Boat Fortune's Favour.

Sea Wolf's Dinghy going for a ride in the bay.

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Boldt’s Castle on Heart Island in the Thousand Islands

August 31, 2011 — s/v Black Diamond

A view from Alexandria Bay of Heart Island and Bold's Castle

Amazing, 137 room castle, complete with Yacht House, Play House and Power House. To house, Boats, Toys, and it’s own electric generation.

The Story of Bold's Castle.

The grounds and gardening is also a sight to see on Heart Island.

This is the Yacht House....Amazing.

This the boat house for the castle, or should I say Yacht house by its proper name. Mr. Bold had a fleet of 60 boats, as you can see here it can even house sailboats with the mast’s up, just pull in and close the door behind you. Today its also part of the tour, and show cases many antique boats.

The Play House behind Alexander was the play room for the Castle.

The Power House, electric generators and an apartment for the engineer that ran it.

The story of the power house.

Deer on the gates to welcome guests to the Castle which are called Hearts.

The kids loved exploring the Castle.

The grand staircase.

Beautiful stain glass ceiling, measures about 30 feet in diameter.

The dining room.

A view from the Balcony of what I believe is Mr. Bold's bed room.

Another view from the Balcony of what I believe is Mr. Bold's bed room.

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