Hi James and Betty,
Congrats!
You’ve got lots of time to plan. We’ve liked best of 4,300 miles so far, the Triangle Loop into Canada, the Trent-Severn, and the West Erie Canal.
The only way to do both the Triangle Loop and T-S without backtracking or crossing Lake Ontario twice and the East Erie canal twice would entail doing the Triangle Loop counterclockwise (against the current, assuming you can buck a few miles of 8MPH current on your bow approaching Montreal). Most Looper trawlers can’t do that, is why it’s so strongly discouraged. You would pop out at Kingston into Lake Ontario; explore the Thousand Islands area, then only 70 miles to the entrance to the T-S at Trenton.
In your boat, that would save a lot of fuel overall compared to the alternative of looping with the current (clockwise on the Rideau and Richeleau) if want to take in the T-S as well.
Come back another summer to cruise the West Erie Canal one way east to west, trailering an easy peasy 500 miles a day you’d launch at Pirate’s Cove Marina in three days and One Coach back to your rig for $22 each, or alternate town walls on your out and back.
The worst part of the Loop for a trailer boat is trying to cross the Gulf in winter (Nov-Mar). You can count on a northern Artic blast every 7-10 days that takes three days or more to pass and leaves the Gulf stirred up for another three days….and by then the next one is arriving. Big boats have waited for 21 days straight for a weather window at Carrabelle. (Don’t buy the stale bread at the IGA). Put Molly Brown on a rack n’ stack and come back in late March or (even better) in May, when we crossed using the rim route in two easy 150 mile days.
Agree don’t rush! On the other hand, you don’t have to be like us and take a planned 12 years (from 2017) to complete your Loop. We’re mainly doing that because the current record is 11 years.
Safe Travels! We plan to cruise the AICW SC to Waterford in July-mid August, so if you slow down enough you might see us.
John
