The Erie Canal
The Erie Canal stretches nearly 350 miles from Tonawanda on the Niagara River near Buffalo in the west to Waterford on the Hudson River in the east.
The controlling depth is supposed to be 12 feet but we found depths of 9 feet or less in some places. The lowest fixed bridge is 11' 6" so you need to have your mast dropped and either ship it by road or lash it on deck as we did.
There are boat yards and yacht clubs at either end where you can have your mast stepped and unstepped, or yacht clubs where you can do it yourself for a few dollars donation.
We took six and a half days to cover the canal. If you have time it would be worth taking more time especially in the western part, visiting the towns and sites around the canal which has an interesting history. The current canal is the third incarnation and traces of the original canal - 'Clinton's Ditch' can be seen along the banks.
The canal operates in summer from 07.00 to 19.00 and that's quite long enough to be motoring a yacht with the mast on deck. It took us three days to stop banging our heads on the cross trees while handling the lines and cables in the locks.
Locking procedure is quite easy once you get the hang of it. We were lucky in that as we were late in the season we only shared two of the more than thirty locks with another vessel. The procedure is that you contact the lock keeper on VHF Ch. 13 with something like 'We are an eastbound sailboat wishing to lock down." and once the lock is prepared (in practice they are often open as the first lock keeper you encounter on a day will ask you how far you are going that day and advise their colleagues further down the canal) you get a green light displayed and the lock gates open.
You motor in so that your foredeck crew can pick up a cable with a boat hook and hold on to it, while the rear deck crew does the same. You then hold the boat in with the cable and fend off if required with the boat hook. Its a good idea to be well fendered up with large fenders on both sides.The top edge of the locks when full can be very low on the water line so check your fenders are low enough especially in the eastern part of the canal.
Procedure for the bridges is similar in that you call them on Ch. 13 by bridge name and request a lift. You may have to wait a little while while traffic clears, and just once we waited longer as the bridge keeper was painting the other side of the bridge and didn't have his radio with him! We often found that the bridges opened when we were closer than we wanted and decided in the end that this was the bridge keepers art and designed to minimise the time the bridge was closed to traffic.
There are plenty of free moorings along the way on town docks or on the walls near the locks. Free pump outs can be found and some docks even have free electricity although there'd be great demand for this in high season. We avoided the marinas which are generally aimed at power boats and often too shallow for our 6' draft in any case. Our best moorings were in Pittsford near Rochester where they laid on outdoor music and fireworks just for us (the signs said 'Pittsford Celebrates' but didn't say what they were celebrating so why not our arrival?) and some of the many rural locks where we tied up for quiet nights.
In the western part the canal is mainly just that - a canal. The eastern part is canalised rivers and lakes. The largest lake is Lake Oneida where we had our worst day with rain and some wind. The wind quickly built up 2 - 3 foot waves which made us glad we'd tied the mast down so well. However the crossing doesn't take long and we were soon back into the protection of the canal again.
The canal ends with a flight of five locks which take you down to Waterford on the Hudson River. But the fun isn't over as you need to motor a few miles down the Hudson to get your mast stepped. We had this done at Hop O Nose Marina in Catskill Creek where they charged $3 a foot mast length and also have a fine restaurant on site.