On Tuesday 23-Aug-2011 we set out from Toronto to sail across Lake Ontario. Lake Ontario is one of the 5 Great lakes and is the 4th largest fresh water (by volume and the smallest by size) lake in the Great Lakes.

We started out trying to calibrate our auto-pilot compass. This consisted of shutting the compass off, driving around in circles and waiting for the deviation screen to come on. After one hour of trying to calibrate it, we gave up. No auto-pilot for this trip.

We have 3 of us on this trip; Bob Buckley, the owner and captain of the boat, Joe, a native pastor who is involved with various ministries in the Toronto area and myself.

Our boat is a 30ft sail boat with a 24 HP diesel engine, a main sail and a jib. It was built in 1986 by Ticon Yachts in Oakville Ontario.

The original purpose of this trip was to test out the system in our trans Atlantic trip next year but the extra equipment is delayed until next week before it is installed. The other purpose was to test Joe and I to see how we make out on a continuous sail.

Our plan was to sail 48 hour straight and we take turns every 4 hours sailing. That was until a weather front decided to visit us around 2am. We almost made the other side of lake Ontario and made it as far as this side of Main Duck Island. Our original goal was to hit Main Duck Island in the morning when it was light out. There are many shoals and we really didnt want to navigate that in the dark. At 4:30am, at the beginning of my shift, we decided to turn around and head back to Colburg Ontario. The winds starting hit up to 30 knots and so we took the sails down and drove under diesel power.

After battling to get the sails down and tied up, Joe and Bob went to bed and I kept my eyes on the compass and headed 272 west. The wind started to create some good waves and there were lots of swells 3-4 meters high. I did get wet from time to time.

After a few hours, the winds started to slow down a bit I started to put the jib out which prompted Bob to bolt out of bed and make sure the rookie knew what he was doing. I was so sleepy that after 3 hours of my shift, Bob took over and I slept until 11am. I then got up and took over again and brought the boat close to the harbour using the compass on the GPS. At 2pm we fuelled up and took a berth to spend the night. Bob finally got a restful sleep knowing that his baby was docked and not at the helm of a couple of rookies in a major squall.

Cotter ring broke during the storm and almost let goOne thing we noticed was a broken cotter pin and a pin partially pulled out of a cable holding the main mast. We fixed it but were fortunate that it never let go during the high winds, when the sails were up.

After a fairly rough night weather wise, we got up at 6am and were heading back to Toronto at 7am. We started out with up to 2meter waves but ended the day with a fairly calm lake. We arrived back at the harbour at 7pm.