Small Boat Cruise: Force 5 North Channel (archives)


by John Kaandorp


For a sailor, waiting for a big, intemperate wind to whither is as difficult as waiting for enough wind to build. For me, per- haps worse, as I love sailing in big air and hate to miss a chance to really push my boat. But in August 2010 in the teeth of a westerly gale, I paced the small beach in Little Current on Manitoulin Island as my Force Five dinghy sat idle on the trailer. I forced myself to be patient, and scanned the whitecaps under blue skies with tiring eyes. I whittled away the time; I ran, I read, and ran again. I fussed with the boat, loaded and unloaded the dry bags a dozen times. I looked at the maps, and then the heaving waves again. In town I ate ice-cream cones and watched the sun go down, but not the 35 knots of wind. I willed it to drop. My mind and heart were seized on channels, islands and anchorages of the North Channel of Lake Huron. In late aſternoon during a brief lull, I’d


barely stepped the mast and the sleeved sail when the force of the wind chewed on the rig and beat the battens wildly, as the hull pitched on the wave-filled beach. Te outhaul was impossible to tighten without


12 SMALL CRAFT ADVISOR


the hull and sail becoming wildly active. I would have had to pull the boat out into the shallows, let it turn downwind and tip, wade around to the transom, tighten the outhaul with the sail relaxed in the water, then tighten the vang and super-vang the mainsheet, come around again and pull the rudder down as I climb on the daggerboard and right it without being swept onto the beach. I had practiced this move many times, but not with the boat laden with a week’s worth of food and camping gear. And certainly not in winds that strong. It was risky.


In the water up to my chest and at the


bow, I looked once again at the chaos around me. I thought of the many hours I had spent refitting my Force 5 for adven- ture sailing on Lake Huron: four screw- type sea-kayaking ports cut into the hull to accommodate small dry bags; a reinforced gudgeon plate fixed to the transom with oversized bolts and bushings to take the strain and minimize shearing; the transom itself stiffened with extra mahogany glued inside the hull; a spare tiller and extension dropped into the hollow aluminum mast to keep it out of the way; a cut down


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84