WPSU

Sunday, June 3, 2018

To Infinity and Beyond . . . or to Palmyra

And we're off! In the back-
ground: Midlakes, our home port
Dragonfly left her home port of Macedon, NY at 2:30 pm under gray skies, drizzling rain.

Shortly after lunch, the Captain conquered the wiring challenges related to installing the generator. As soon as he stowed his wrenches,  we hauled our lines. With little ceremony, we quietly, smoothly cruised out of the basin. Goodbye, MidLakes Navigation!  You've been so good to us!

The drizzle soon turned to a downpour. My brand new rain gear (thanks, ClearWater friends!) was up to the challenge as I stood on our external walkway, holding the lines through two locks in rapid succession.

SlowBoat Seems Speedy!

Mission Accomplished! This canal boat is now powered
 as no canal boat has been powered before.

In the past, when we cruised on electric power, we traveled at about 3.5 mph. That seemed to be the optimal rate of travel to avoid depleting our batteries. Today, we averaged about 5 mph, which seemed positively bracing! (The boat's top speed is 6 mph.)

The combined improvements Bill has made this year:

  1. more solar panels
  2. an expanded battery bank (we're up from half a ton of batteries to 1500 pounds worth!) and 
  3. dual electric motors (instead of a single motor) 
really seem to have improved her performance.

Where in the World is SlowBoat?

Palmyra, Queen of the
Canal Towns
We averaged 5 mph, traveling a grand total of . . . three miles. (That rain was cold! and wet!  When the going gets tough, SlowBoaters tie up.)

Tonight we are in Palmyra, NY (home of Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, aka the Mormon faith).  The town has a sweet little public dock, in a small inlet, and there to greet us were a flock of geese and a couple of Mormon missionaries, deployed here from Utah to serve as "harbor hosts."

On this blog, I'll always let you know were we are, but . . .  more exciting new technology . . . we are carrying a special radio transceiver that will let you track us and (through the magic of Google) SEE where we are, as if you were here yourself.  Check back tomorrow for full details. 


Posted by Cynthia
at 6/03/2018 09:49:00 PM

2 comments:

  1. UnknownJune 4, 2018 at 2:09 PM

    Great to see you are off and running. This is exciting, and I look forward to following your adventures.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CynthiaJune 8, 2018 at 2:17 PM

      Thanks! We hope they will be just adventurous enough and not TOO adventurous!

      Delete

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