Welland Canal

The Erie Canal will open May 15/18 and the Oswego Canal will open May 18/18.
The owner of the Prestige is flying a mechanic in to Ohio today to remove everything off the roof in order to be shipped by truck.
The reason he moved the boat from Rochester to Ohio was it required less police escorts and permits, also he saved
$ 27,000.00.

To day in the Welland Canal a 52' Manhattan and a 50' Predator bound for Cleveland Ohio and will be unloaded Thursday morning. The dealer told me that this is the first Predator in North America.
This Friday they will be loading a 74' Predator in Antwerp and also bound for St Clair Shores.

DELAYS WELLAND CANAL
Any delivery captains or anyone that will be using the Welland Canal this years be prepared for delays getting through the Welland Canal.
Over the past few weeks I have seen yachts wait three days to get through the canal.
I had a delivery captain last week wait three days below lock one to go up bound and on his return trip waited two days to go down bound.
I feel sorry for boaters this summer who are on holidays in the upper great lakes coming down for a week or two cruise on Lake Ontario they could loose five or six days just to get through the canal.
This all do to the automation of the Welland Canal.
I now tell captains who are using the Erie Canal if they can get air draft down to 15' 5 " to go through to Buffalo to avoid the Welland Canal.
Another thing we have been rafting three abreast as there is not much usable space in the locks do to the new tie up machines, and with twenty one million gallons in twelve minutes is hard the fenders rafting three abreast.

I would come to dock in the morning and report in and get on their list.
The situation I have to day is we have three good size power boats will have to raft and then three sail boats will have to raft
as up in the flight locks you can not be past the 50 M mark. Four of the boats have now been waiting two days and canal is busy with commercial traffic and if we do start it will not be until around 15:00 hrs and will be a twelve hour trip.

Made a trip up the canal on Sunday on a 85' Pacific Mariner and we had an 58' Absolute Nava tta rafted along side us for the trip. The hull was vinyl wrapped which I have never seen before and was surprised after the trip up canal there was no marks on it and we had a few rough locks.

Blue Moon and Rock It through the Welland Canal this week

A few yachts up the canal this week
Qing 150' Cheoy Lee was down bound
Georgia 112' Ocean Alexander
Seaquest 164' Westport
t

An old Burger up canal today Estrella de Mar 1965 82'