The Journey of the Osprey: Bay City to Kingston

Where does the story begin? When a boy sailing on the Ohio River in a canoe rigged with a sail, dreams of sailing around the world? Or when the renowned boat builder builds the boat that would carry him? I'll start with the boat.



This is a picture of the Yacht Osprey under construction at The Hinckley Company in Southwest Harbor Maine. A Phillip Rhodes design, it was the last wooden boat and the last custom boat Hinckley built. It was the pride of the Hinckley fleet in Southwest Harbor, Osprey's home for over a decade. Think of how special this boat must have been to be pictured on the Hinckley website a half century after it was built.

It was built for the ocean with incredibly sturdy construction. Osprey was designed and built to sail around the world. It was it's destiny. Osprey gave confidence to an inexperienced crew that the trip would be successful. It was the perfect sailboat.



Osprey was a beautiful sailboat. Although this photo of a Hinckley yatch is not Osprey it has a lot of similarities: the sleek lines, the clipper bow, low freeboard, sloping transom, white hull, wooden spars, wooden toe rail, the forestay sail and the mizzenmast. The pictured boat is missing the center-cock pit and the dodger. I was always proud to be on Osprey. No matter the port, Osprey was the most beautiful sailboat in the harbor.



The Boy in a canoe rigged with a sail is my father, Joseph A. Noertker Jr. He says the dream of sailing was born on the Ohio river. About 30 years later he moved up to a Sunfish. We used to sail the Sunfish on Klinger Lake in southwest Michigan. That was the extent of our families sailing experience. We had never even handled a jib sail. Tacking was as simple as pushing the tiller and ducking.

Our lack of sailing experience was only the start of our lack of knowledge and experience. There was boat handling(i.e. docking), rules of the road, navigation, electronics, first aid, diesel engine maintenance and repair, anchoring, and just about everything else you need to know. One of the things we learned about anchoring is "Don't throw the anchor." Dad went about learning what he needed to know. He delegated some of the areas to other family members.

I was given the task of figuring out how we were going to do sail handling. I had never even seen how a jib changed from side to side. Yet this was the perfect task for me. This is the part of sailing I loved. I found a book at the U of M library about sail handling, a Naval Academy manual on sailing the Yuders 41 yaul. A yaul and a ketch are the same except for the placement of the mizzen mast. A big difference was that the Navy used a crew of nine we only had 4. But it was a great resource.

Then there was actually planning the trip. Dad read many an account of circumnavigators that went before him. He knew all the good ports of call and points of interest. He also took into account global storm seasons and schedule the trip accordingly. He did an amazing job of preparing for the trip.

In 1975, we did a shake down cruise on the Great Lakes. We sailed about 1,000 miles that summer. It was invaluable experience. The next summer we would start the trip around the world.



The around the world trip started virtually in our backyard. After searching for a suitable sailboat all over the U.S., Dad found Osprey in Bay City Michigan. Dad asked us if we would rather to sail out the St Lawrence seaway or demast, take the Erie Canal and save 1000 miles? Demasting sounded like a hassle. Sailing 1000 miles sounded like fun. My vote was to sail out the St. Lawrence.

This route would take us to most of the major Canadian cities in the east: Toronto, Kingston, Montreal, Quebec, and Halifax. 2000 miles to Nova Scotia and the Atlantic Ocean, then nearly the same down the Atlantic seaboard to Moorhead City North Carolina.


We prepared Osprey in dry dock for the Around the World trip at Bay City Marina. Dad lived and worked on the boat for months. He worked on many projects. My older brother, Steve worked on the boat there as well. He found some rot, dug it out and fixed it. I was impressed. I was there for a couple weeks.

My younger and I got the hateful task of repainting the hull. But first we had to sand the old red lead paint off. Using a power sander we sprayed red lead dust particles everywhere. It was a mess! We wore ventilation masks, however now knowing the health risks lead paint poses, its amazing that we didn't have any lasting effects...lasting effects...lasting effects... would you answer the phone!

We had a long list of tasks and a schedule for putting the boat in the water. Osprey went into the water on time, but some of the tasks didn't get done. The Osprey is a wooden boat and everyone knows wooden boats will seep a little water until the planks swell. So no one was too concerned as the boat filled with water when it was lowered on the slings. But the water kept coming in.

After a while we figured something was wrong. A search to find the source of the water began. We checked the through-hull-fittings. I pulled up the floor boards in the aft cabin, reached down and felt water pouring in. I felt a threaded metal hole in the bottom of the boat. I had no idea what it was. We raised the boat back out of the water. Someone who knew, screwed in the bottom plug and checked "Replace the Bottom Plug" off the "to do list".




None the less, early in the morning, the beginning of June 1976, the bi-centennial year, the Osprey and crew left Bay City Marina to sail around the world. The voyage of the Osprey started...ON-TIME.

While Doug and Mom tied up loose ends in Ann Arbor, Dad and I were going to sail to Detroit. We picked up an extra crew, a young man I had just met hitch-hiking up to Marquette a few weeks earlier. Think his name was Ned. The sail started out perfect. We sailed past the tip of the thumb at dusk, and night sailed south to Port Huron. It was a clear night with a light but steady wind. We used the lights from the small coastal towns to navigate.

In the morning we sailed under the Bluewater Bridge in Port Huron and the entrance to the St Clair River. We had very little wind, but we left our sails up and the engine idling (in case of an emergency). We slowly drifted our way down river. Dad hated using the engine.


This is a great picture because it really helps explain what happened on the St Clair River...when the engine died!

We were little more than drifting when the engine alarm went off. It was over heating. We had to shut it down. With plenty of freighter traffic, no wind and no engine we had our emergency. Dad looked on the chart trying to find a safe place to a drop and anchor. Ned and I went forward to prepare the anchor. Dad kept looking for a place, but because we kept drifting it was a moving target. Ned (standing at the bow with the anchor) and I (at the helm) were getting anxious, tensions were rising. We kept drifting, drifting and drifting.

Then, muttering something like "This is ridicules!" Ned just threw the anchor in the water. I remember thinking, "What are you doing? You're not suppose to throw an anchor!" But in seconds it became obvious that the anchor held and we had stopped. Calm returned to Osprey. We were on the side of the shipping lane not too far from a long dock sticking out into the river. I wouldn't be surprised if the dock is in the picture. Ned swam a line over to the dock and we winched the boat over. Quickly the Osprey was tied to the dock, safe and sound.

Ned took off almost as quickly. He left the way I had met him, hitchhiking. His parting words were something like "Good luck, you going to need it!" Truly the anchor could not have been thrown in a better place. However between you and me, I still think Ned should have lowered carefully.

Dad went a shore and got permission from the owners to stay at their dock. We were on Harson's Island. As luck would have it, this was a farming community with tractors that had Detroit Diesel engines like Osprey. Dad was able to find the part needed to repair the engine, which he did himself. I was impressed!

Because of the rather inauspicious beginning I would like to call this sail the unofficial start of the trip. With in a few days, Mom and Doug joined us at Harson's Island and the trip officially started.



We had no problem negotiating Lake St. Clair or the Detroit River. In fact, it was a beautiful day and a beautiful sail. But that afternoon when we got out into Lake Erie it was another story.

First the wind and the waves picked up from the east, which is where we were heading. Lake Erie is shallow and the waves get steep. It was rough. And there were freighters, each damn one of them on a collision coarse with us. Look at the picture...now imagine you are sailing in front of the the ship. Yeah, it was that scary!!!

I discovered an interesting phenomena. We were beating to windward and I could see we were on a collision course with a freighter. So I decided to steer to the left a little. This headed into the wind a little, which slowed us down, which compensated for the course change. We were still on a collision course. Then I decided to steer to the right a little. This made us go faster, which compensated for the course change, and were were still on a collision coarse. So no matter which way I steered we were on a collision coarse. There was only one thing to do..."Prepare to come about". Tacking in the short steep chop is no great honor either. We were probably under-sailed (not enough canvas) which made maneuvering difficult. Every once in a while it would take a second try to get through the wind, all the while a freighter is barreling down on us.

Eventually, we got out of the shipping lanes and away from the freighters. Next stop was the opposite end of Lake Erie, the Welland Canal...or so we thought.

That night when I got off the helm, I did some navigating. I looked at the chart. I saw Point Peele. I knew we would be going by the point during the night. But I knew we would clear of the point of land by plenty. So I yelled up to the helmsman a course and "all good water". The east wind had lightened and seas subsided. I slept like a baby.



I was awoken to the command of "All hands on deck! All hands on deck!" We had run aground on a sand bar that must have extended miles off Point Peele. We started inflating the dingy, to carry out an anchor, to kedge our way off the sand bar. These preparations took some time and before we could drop the dingy in the water, the gentle east wind and waves naturally pushed Osprey off the sand bar.

After putting the dingy and the anchor stuff away, I went back to bed, much humbler, and a little wiser a navigator. The official start to the around the world trip was even more inauspicious then the unofficial start.



The next obstacle was a must to avoid, Niagara Falls!


The Niagara Falls by pass is the Welland Canal.
The Lake Erie entrance to the Welland Canal is at Port Colborne, which we arrived at without further incidents.

This is where we went through Canadian Customs. The Customs agent visited us on board. He asked if we made any stops along the way. I remember thinking about telling him about our little stop at Point Peele. However, I decided he might not get the joke, so I kept my mouth shut.




The Welland Canal is about thirty miles long with 8 locks. It would take all day to transit. At each lock we would have to dock before we went in and again once we were in the lock. This gave us some much needed docking practice. I was at the helm for most of the dockings.



Once in the locks we put long dock lines around cleats. As we were lowered to the next level we payed out the lines.

We used tin cans to hold Osprey off the slimy walls as we went.


The next day we sailed across Lake Ontario to Toronto. It was a beautiful and short sail.

The original plan was to stay at the Royal Yatch Club in Toronto. But something kept us from going there, probably availability. We found space at an amusement park, Ontario Place. Because our docking was a circus act in the early days, it seemed fitting that we would bring our "circus on water" to an amusement park. However, the practice in the Welland Canal paid off and I docked Osprey in a rather tight spot on the breakwall in the photo.

Ontario Place was a great place to stay. There were plenty of things going on. I remember we saw Lionel Hampton play an outdoor concert.


Ontario Place also had a train station that could take us around Toronto.

Two things I remember doing in Toronto: Dinner at the restaurant on top of the Royal York Hotel. And going to a science museum. The museum demonstrated a laser, the size of a car, that burned a hole in a block of wood 20 feet away.

Our stay in Toronto was fantastic. It was the first exciting port of call of the trip, and gave us an idea of the adventure to come.
From Toronto, we continued our journey east in Lake Ontario. The sail from Toronto started hazy and turned into a dense fog in a hurry. Dad thought he would practice his celestial navigation. The results weren't that comforting, as he had us twenty miles inland on highway 2.

Not having electronic navigation, we used the tried and true method of navigation called "Dead Reckoning". That is estimating distance and direction and plotting it on the chart. Doug and I speculated how Dead Reckoning got it's name. It is a three step process. First the navigator plots his position and says "I reckon we're here." Then when that turns out to be wrong he says "I reckon we're lost." Then as the situation becomes perilous he says, "I reckon we're DEAD!"

We managed to find our way into the Coburg harbor using dead reckoning and the help of our radar.
From Coburg we sailed to the Bay de Quinte, which is a group of islands and narrow channels. We enjoyed the protected waters and a steady south wind. When we turned south in the channel to Picton we were heading into the wind. In the past we might have begged to use the engine. Dad hates using the engine. But this time Doug and I took up the challenge to tack in the narrow channel.

We must have tacked back and forth twenty times. Working hard to come about quickly. We trimmed the sails carefully, analyzing our speed and direction, trying to maximize our progress to windward. It was the best sailing we had done to that point.



Picton is a beautiful place. It was the first true vacation spot we visited.



Picton Ontario. This is a nice picture of the tranquility one can get on the water.

The sail from Picton to Kingston was also memerable for a couple reasons. We had great weather. It was a warm day with good winds and protected waters. We decided to lower the bowsan's chair from the mizzen boom into the water. We took turns sitting in the chair and swimming behind the boat. I think this playfulness showed a comfort level with sailing.


The other memerable moment came with some engine problem as we were approaching Kingston. There was no panic. Dad went below and fixed the problem. I was impressed.

We had sailed across two of the Great Lakes, maybe 500 miles or so. I think we were starting to get the hang of it.