Susan Hood, 75 Mile over night race on Lake Ontario
Well Guys, Black Diamond is back in Toronto….It was a grueling two weeks, stepping the mast down in Catskills, NY and after navigating 33 locks through the Erie & Oswego Canals, then an all night crossing of Lake Ontario, lengthwise about 125 miles (200 km). We stepped the mast back up on Thursday, the day before we entering the Susan Hood (The Susan Hood is an all night race from PCYC to Burlington to Niagara-on-the-Lake and back to PCYC). Doing all this work in one shot felt like a marathon. I can definitely see my self in a trawler when I get tired of all this.
Cezary took this picture while we were stepping the mast just before the Susan Hood.
While stepping the mast up, Cezary took this picture half way up our 60 foot mast, standing on the spreaders and taking a little picture of me on the fore deck. Look at the dark water, what a contrast to the Bahamas. Anyways could not have had the boat ready in time if it was not for the help of the crew, namely Cezary and Kate Thomas. Cezary even installed a new HD TV Dome on the mast while it was down, what a trooper. Also thanks to Uncle Paul Thornton for making sure all the wiring was connected properly.
Calm before the storm
Start of the Susan Hood at Dusk, the calm before the storm.
My father George took this beautiful picture at the start of the Susan Hood race on Friday May 29th. The race started at 8PM, just before dusk. At the starting gun, a squall rolled across the lake, 25 knots of wind (50km), and a down pour of rain ensued, everyone got soaking wet before the race even started. For awhile there, we had less than 10 feet of visibility. Then we proceeded around the lake without much sleep all night, arriving by 11:02AM on Saturday, 15 hours later, and 1 minute faster than last year. We should have been far faster with the extra wind, and the use of a spinnaker this year. We lost almost 2 hours due to a strategic error, we choose to stay in shore between Burlington and Niagara thinking there would be more wind. In addition to not providing any more wind, this increased our sailing distance. Oh well live and learn. We’ll be back next year and give it another shot. We are now looking forward to Monday night racing around the bouys at PCYC.
Just before dusk a squall hit all the boats!
