David’s Voyage Blog

Publish Date: Sunday, May 24, 2009
Location:   Port Colborne, Ontario
Coordinates:   42° 52.537′ N  79° 15.446′ W

We are moored at Port Colborne, looking out at Lake Erie. In the last three weeks we transited the Hudson River, Erie Canal, Oswego Canal, Lake Ontario, and, just yesterday, the Welland Canal. Whew! Our summer cruising officially begins here, as things get easier now that we’re actually “in” the upper Great Lakes.

The Welland Canal is part of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the commercial shipping route between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean. The Welland Canal carries freighters between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, allowing them to avoid Niagara Falls (the natural flow of water from Lake Erie into Lake Ontario). The canal has eight locks, including three “flight locks” where you exit one lock and go right into another. The locks are 750 feet long and 80 feet wide, which makes Three@Sea feel like a bathtub toy. The average lift is about 45 feet. We had to transit the Welland Canal because Three@Sea is too tall to cruise on the western half of the Erie Canal.

The Welland Canal had me pretty stressed out before we transited. I wasn’t concerned about handling the boat in the locks, and I wasn’t concerned about our safety, but I was concerned about the boat getting damaged by being slammed against the lock walls. When transiting the canal in the upstream direction, the locks get filled with water very quickly: 25-million gallons of water in about 10 minutes. I had heard about the significant turbulence from other cruisers, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. To prepare for the transit, we borrowed a few extra fenders from my cousin Jon when we were in Brewerton, and that turned out to be essential: Every fender on the boat was working at one time or another. I don’t think you can have too many fenders when going through this canal in the upstream direction.

We also hired Mark as a deckhand, a local gentleman who helps cruisers transit the canal. The Canal authority requires you to have three adults on board when going in the upstream direction. We were happy to have Mark aboard, as he not only was a good line handler, but he knew all the procedures for each lock.

It took from 6:30am until 4:00pm to go through the canal. We were behind a tug-and-barge, and in front of a large freighter, but we were alone in each lock. We had to wait 30-40 minutes at a few locks because the large ships take a long time to get in and out of the locks, but all in all the transit went smoothly. The turbulence was pretty intense, but we managed to avoid any damage because we had good fenders, strong line handlers, and I tried to control the boat with the engine and bow-thruster.

I’m very happy to have this transit behind us. It was a good warm-up for the Panama Canal, which we will transit next winter, but it’s not something I want to do again. We won’t go back through the Welland Canal on our way out of the Great Lakes because we’ll take the Trent-Severn Waterway from Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario. All’s well that ends well.

Now, it’s on to Lake Erie and Lake Huron!