Pukaskwa (1st trip in CS17)

[Andy Breckenridge]

My wife and I purchased an unfinished CS17 in June of 2017, and I finished it in late June. We did a few short sails on Lake Erie in early July (included a swamp test), then head to Pukaskwa for a 5-day family trip (girls, ages 6 and 9) to Cascade Falls and back, starting at Hattie Cove (~115 km round trip). This was our first sailing trip. [My wife and I are canoers, but I've encouraged switching to a sailboat because it'd be easier to do trips like this with the kids, rather than canoeing. We've done family canoeing trips around the north end of Isle Royale, around the Slate Islands, and a trip in Quetico, but our kids don't like to spend a lot of time in the canoe - so it's hard to go far.]

 

We didn't sail much. We had almost no wind for 3 days, then were windbound a day when the winds gusted to 50 km/h. We sailed in a dense fog for a couple hours the final day when the winds were around 5 knots, with occasional gusts  - but this wind eventually disappeared. We ended up motoring most the trip (Suzuki 2.5 hp), but only used around 2 gallons the whole trip, and traveled around 4-5 mph at low throttle (which felt really fast - because we are canoers).

 

I love our new boat! We have lots of storage in hatches, so the deck is cleared. It's comfortable, and I felt safe in significant swells on Lake Superior. We bought a couple Aere beach rollers, and tried them out the first night. I think we should have 1 more, but we figured out how to get the boat up a sand beach. I think a cobble beach would be too tough for two people - cobble beaches on Lake Superior tend to be really steep.

 

The entire northern coastline of Superior is spectacular! Pukaskwa National Park is not accommodating  for cruising like this (they don't even have a boat ramp, and a park warden suggested our trip wasn't possible in this boat) - but I thought this was a great boat for the trip. There's no way we could have done this trip in 5 days canoeing with our girls. We spent around 4-5 hours a day on the water and were able to play games with them as we traveled. We could also hauled a ton of gear compared to our canoe.

 

We'll do a weekend trip to the Apostles this fall - plus practice sailing in the Duluth harbor.

[Chick Ludwig]

Thanks or posting your adventure. It's always great for those of us that can't travel to other areas to see them through our pictures.