I find your situation very interesting. You are a very rare sailor. For some reason, I often have dreams where I am sailing down city streets, which happen to have water in them. Somehow my spar never catches any wires. I have talked to other sailors who have similar dreams. I must secretly want to be in the river like you.
Bill Coleman C&C 39 From: CnC-List [mailto:cnc-list-boun...@cnc-list.com] On Behalf Of J.P. via CnC-List Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2014 4:23 PM To: cnc-list@cnc-list.com Subject: Stus-List River cruise All, Just wanted to share some of this weekend's Memorial Day trip. as some of you may remember, I have Gabriela, a C&C 34' that is homeport on the Snake River in Washington. I know it seems weird, but I moved here from California where week long sails in the Big Blue Pacific were commonplace and everyone had a sailboat. I needed my fix, so I bought a C&C 34 in Seattle and moved it to my home marina. Needless to say during the move I learned about low clearances under bridges and trying to dock in extreme currents. This past weekend we took Gabriela for a cruise. All last fall we refitted, cleaned, painted, and generally dressed up the 1978 beauty. This was the first "out of town" trip we took.not much of a trip only about 25 miles down river, but it was a classic trip none the less. The winter runoff from the snow melt in the mountains of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington have made the Snake river a swirling cauldron of tree stumps, broken branches, muddy water and all the nastiness that happens during the runoff days. The neighbor in the slip next to mine is a seasoned river captain has had his commercial license to take 40-60ft jet boats with up to 50 passengers on them up river to a place called Hells Canyon. He owns a Catalina 36 he lives aboard. He said "don't do it, the river is a mess". the extra current made the water roil around the bridge emplacements, and there was a whole forest floating down the rapidly moving Snake. I took it as a challenge J We left around noon and made good a speed over the ground (or water as it were) of 9.5 knots. The wind was blowing from the east, the Yanmar was pushing us downstream at a good clip and we had the winds at our back (from the east). We made 25 miles in just over 2.5 hours. Since marinas and docks on the snake are far and few between, especially one that can handle the draft of a C&C 34, we decided to anchor. We found an eddy ( a back flow in the river made by "coves" in the shore line and actually let the boat point WEST instead of EAST as the flow of the current would indicate. We set a bow anchor and a stern anchor in 40' of water, fired up the BBQ and the stereo (there is no cell service or TV or Radio for that matter). and had steaks and corn on the cob courtesy of the BBQ grill on the back rail. Because the river got deeper here (around 125 feet) the water flowed less on the surface, and more down deep. and the junk floating in the water seemed to "disperse" more. by the next day, it was clear and clean water and the junk had washed down the river to the Columbia. During the night, a small front moved in and dropped a little rain on us, but we were snug inside the dry and cozy cabin. We had put memory foam mattresses under all the sleeping berths and we slept the sleep of angels. In the morning, the coyotes woke us up, and we fixed a breakfast on the stove in the galley, pulled up anchor and headed back up river. Expecting a slight westerly we were pleasantly surprised when the wind was pretty fresh at around 10mph from the west consistently with gusts to 20mph. this pushed Gabriela along at an average of 5.5 knts AGAINST the current.we sailed in the shallowest part of the river as we could, thus keeping out of the fastest part of the flow. In the end, we made the 25 miles back home in about 4.5 hours with more than half the trip under sail. It was a challenge dodging the flotsam in the water, but we did it without even getting close to a log. (the river can be over a half mile wide in some places.) as much of it had washed past us during the night. The return was sunny and 75 degrees with a nice tail wind mostly and a great day sailing. The boar was solid, the handling was superb, and the sail plan was perfect for what we needed. Thanks for reading --- hope to see you in our water some day. JP S/V Gabriela 1978 C&C 34
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