GL: Great Loop boat

[LRZeitlin at aol.com]

I know that the issue has been almost beaten to death, but we did most of the 
Great Loop, in stages, in a 22' auxiliary sailboat - long before the voyage 
was known as the "Great Loop."

My wife and I bought a 22' Westerly Nomad sailboat in 1965 as a birthday 
present for each other. After a couple of seasons of ever longer voyages in L. I. 
Sound, the Jersey Shore, the Florida Keys and the Maine coast, we determined 
to try to circumnavigate the entire eastern half of the U.S. To those 
unfamiliar with the boat, the Westerly Nomad is a particularly British design with twin 
keels and a skeg protected prop. It has standing headroom if you are not too 
tall, an enclosed head with a LectraSan, comfortable twin berths, propane 
cooking facilities, etc. True to British design, it sacrifices deck space for 
comfortable out of the weather enclosure. The mast is very securly supported by 
stays about double the size of those in similar U.S. sailboats; and, having 
lived in the UK and sailed in the Channel and Irish Sea, I can understand why. But 
it lowers in about 15 minutes of single handed effort. The engine power is 
supplied by a Volvo MB10 inboard, maximum speed, 6 knots. The boat is no speed 
demon but is enormously seaworthy for a small sailboat.

We sailed up the Hudson, lowered the mast and motored the length of the Erie 
Canal. We took an extended side excursion to the Finger Lakes where our son 
was attending college. In all, we lived on the boat for three months that 
summer. I got a ride home and we picked up our boat trailer and trailed the boat 
home for the winter. The twin keeled sailboat sits very securely on a flatbed 
trailer.

The next year we continued our trip, trailing the boat to our starting point 
near Oswego and completed the Canadian portion of the trip through Georgian 
Bay to Chicago. Again,   we trailed the boat home. The following summer we did 
the ICW to Florida from our home in   the Hudson Valley and gunkholed amongst 
the Keys for the entire summer. The boat was left in Florida for the winter at 
an accommodating relative's house. The final summer we sailed the west coast 
of Florida and the Gulf and ended up near New Orleans. At the advice of friends 
in the towing industry who suggested that our 6 knot top speed would make 
progress upriver difficult, we again trailed the boat back home. To our regret, 
we never completed the inland river portion of the loop.

In all, we spent almost a year in the confined accomodations of a 22' boat 
with a moderate degree of comfort. My wife and I were still on speaking terms, 
probably because every week or so we would treat ourselves to a stay ashore, 
warm showers, and a good meal. Sometimes twice a week. The rest of the time we 
anchored out or stayed at a friend's or relative's waterside dock. Probably no 
more than a dozen nights in marinas in a year on the water.

In retrospect we are glad that we did the loop in stages. We had plenty of 
time to dawdle, smell the roses, and just do sightseeing. The very shallow draft 
of our boat, 2'3", let us get into places we would hesitate to attempt with 
our Willard. The twin keels took the anxiety out of a falling tide since the 
boat was designed for drying out moorings.

To answer three unasked questions, a small boat is comfortable for reasonable 
periods if it has the basic necessities and you don't expect to fully 
replicate shoreside amenities. For us, if was about a week at a time before we wanted 
to have room to swing a cat. We find no virtue in a continuous voyage. 
Breaking it up into stages, whether by trailing the boat home as we did, or by 
leaving it in storage for the winter, lets you enjoy the best cruising weather for 
each location and removes the pressure to arrive at a specific destination at 
a specific time. Finally, the loop is very doable in a sailboat. We had the 
mast up almost all the time, lowering it only for the canals. Sailing in the 
Chesapeake, the Lakes, and the Keys was enjoyable. Would I do the Loop again in a 
small boat, you bet. Of course this time I would take a laptop computer and a 
portable DVD player.

Larry Z


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