Erie Canal travel time question?

[Kaplooi]

So I've read that it takes around 5 days to travel the length of the Erie Canal from Albany to Buffalo which works out to around 68 miles/day. I don't intend to do that but I've been tossing around the idea of boating from my home in Rochester to Cayuga lake, which is about 50 miles and would require traveling through 8 locks. My question is can those 50 miles be covered in a "day" given the 10 mph speed limit? In other words if the canal had no locks I could expect it to take roughly 5 hours to go the distance, but how long should I expect to wait per lock on average? I have to believe it's doable within the canal operating hours (7:00AM to 10:00PM minus 30 minutes at the end of the day). That would be a long day for sure but those hours pretty much cover the 'daylight' hours any ways. By the numbers it looks I'd have up to 9.5 hours to get through 8 locks. I've heard of wait times of "up to 30 minutes" before you can enter a lock, tie up, wait to fill/empty, etc which takes how ever long that takes. Is estimating 1 hour per lock overkill, not enough or about right? Also, once on Cayuga, I'd prefer to have at least an hour of daylight to spare to get down around the Ithaca area at planing speeds. The idea would be to do this trip as a short 3 day weekend vacation. 2 days of leisurely travel to and from and a day of activities on and around the lake. Of course I could always trailer to the finger lakes in an hour or two but how much fun would that be?

 

[ThreeMileBayWaker]

Re: Erie Canal travel time question?

I can't speak for the rest of the locks, but lock 24 in my home town of Baldwinsville cycles every 30-45 mins depending on boat traffic.

So I would think that the 1hour wait time would probably be in your best interest if your trying to stick to a schedule.

 

[Summer Fun]

Re: Erie Canal travel time question?

You can speed a little bit on the canal.

 

[mooregm5]

Re: Erie Canal travel time question?

I know this is a few weeks old, but I wanted to let you know that:

1.) The 10 MPH speed limit is only till lock 26 (Clyde). The rest of the way to the lake is 30 MPH as it is within the river. This will save some time, even if you only plane at 13-15 mph. There still are no wake zones on this section, but for the most part you can plane.

2.) You will find that an hour is over budgeting. Some locks will take you 15 minutes, others closer to an hour. On average for the whole day, plan for about 30 minutes per lock. The area you are going through is not like Lock 24 (Baldwinsville) that sees tons of local traffic, rather most people on this section, like you, are going lock to lock. The lock master will call ahead and you will get into a sequence where the next lock is ready for your arrival, barring any traffic in the other direction (the 20-30 minute wait).

I have done up to 50 miles in a day, and that was on a sailboat doing just under 6 knots. We started at about 8, took a 1.5 hour lunch and did 7 locks. Made it to Whitehall (Champlain Canal) just as it was getting dark. You should have no problem going at 10 mph in the artificial section and faster elsewhere.

Do plan on stopping a few times, be it within a town or at a lock. It can make for a long day if your always "on the move". Montezuma has a dock that would make a nice secluded stop in the afternoon/evening.