Where WhimSea Takes Us

Posted by Karen A. Brown

We headed out bright and early on Saturday determined to reach Sand Island before dark. Friday night the fog had rolled in and the lake kicked up quite a fuss so when we exited through the Duluth piers we weren’t surprised to find significant swells and the water was compressed through the channel.

We bounced our way through and must have looked pretty awesome, a 40 foot boat skipping off the top of six foot waves. After we made it past the piers, we could see that the fog and the lack of wind would result in our motoring at least part of the way to Sand. We, we set a course, turned the boat over to Bob (our auto helm) and were on our way.

At five miles from Duluth, Troy noticed the bilge pump seemed to working more consistently then we’d ever seen her work and certainly more then would be accounted for by the water coming in from the surge. I went below and tried to find a source and couldn’t. It didn’t appear as though anything was leaking. The bilge pump was keeping up as the water levels in the bilge weren’t increasing. But the water was still coming in. We were sinking. We had to return to the marina. We came about and made for the Duluth entry.

When we reached the bridge and they asked us to wait a few minutes, Troy told them we were taking on water. He actually said “Be advised, we are taking on water”. Something I never hope to hear again!

In due course they raised the bridge and we entered the safety of the harbor. We were nearly there. That’s when the fog descended upon us and left us with little to no visibility at all. We slowly and carefully made our way through the harbor and on to the marina where Jim had the lift ready to pull WhimSea out. Before he did, however, he took a look at where the water was coming in since we were able to pinpoint the location by then. It turned out a clamp had slipped, loosening the bladder around the drive shaft and that resulted in water coming in. He tightened it and all was well. By 1:30, we were once again on our way to the Apostle’s.

We continued on that path until around 4:30 when we decided that we would be better off turning towards Knife River and taking a dock there for the night. As it has become a tradition now, we hiked to Emily’s and had a couple of beers and Walleye fillets. We finished up dinner with a couple of beers on the rocks near the entry as we watched the water.

Returning to WhimSea we were hailed by our dock mates and they joined us in a beer or two. Tim and Diane are from the cities and had just bought their boat, from eBay of all places. She’s a 70’s vintage center cockpit sloop with roller furling on both the jib and the mainsail. She has a real short boom and lots of space on her aft deck. Tim and Diane are pretty new to sailing and are in the process of fixing her up and figuring out where they wanted to go with her. We also gave them a tour of WhimSea and amazed them with the feeling of space and the cleverness of its use below decks.

While we were enjoying our beers topside, we were visited by Lynn and Mark from Screaming Eagle. They too have a slip at Knife River. We gave them a tour as well and traded some stick boat versus stink pot stories before everyone turned in for the evening.

Sunday morning dawned bright and clear with a nice breeze blowing. Since Knife River is so close to Duluth, we thought we’d take a run-up to Two Harbors and take a look from the water side.

We pulled out the sails and made a leisurely way to town. We were just about to sail into the harbor when the ore boat at the docks gave a loud horn signaling they would be pulling from the dock and heading out.

Rather then wait for the ship to leave the dock and head on her way, we turned round and laid in a course for Duluth. Since the wind was coming from Duluth, we ended up tacking all day but eventually made it home without incident.