Expedition Diary: Sail Champlain 2025

By Matt Harrison, Sailing Programs Manager

Last week, on July 14, three Lake Champlain Maritime Museum staff and nine teenagers set sail on Lake Champlain as a part of the Museum’s Sail Champlain expedition. Our expedition focused on building comfort with sailing skills and different types of boats from a basecamp and a short overnight expedition.

Beginning on a stormy Monday, campers and counselors prepped gear and provisions on the Museum campus before heading across the lake to their first basecamp at cozy Adirondack Cove in the Split Rock Wild Forest section of the Adirondacks. Once the storms had passed and camp was set up, the teens got an introduction to our fleet of five Split Rock Dinghies which would be their sailing vessels for the first half of the camp. A gentle evening breeze before dinner helped us shake out the dinghies, which were each sailed by a pair of campers. Coming in around 6:30, we began our first group dinner, fire, and night in the woods. Though it was a hot week, the night-time lake breeze generally kept us all cool in our tents.

Tuesday was a hot, calm day and a great opportunity to get some practice with capsizing and recovering the dinghies. These vessels are small and “tender,” meaning they can easily tip over in a heavy gust. But happily, they are also quite easy to right and recover with some bailing of water then required. The campers enjoyed this refreshing practice in the water outside Barn Rock Harbor. After three on-water hours in the morning, we retreated to basecamp for a siesta during the hottest hours of the day and began a crafting project designed to give the group some nautical stitching and canvas-working skills. The hot afternoon was also a good opportunity to talk through some of the physics of sailing and to review our “points of sail,” or the various orientations of a vessel as it sails in relation to the wind direction. Most of our group had some prior sailing experience, but this was a great review for all. With the cool of the evening, we set out again for some more dinghy sailing before dinner, towing the group over to the shade of the Palisades and working our way back to Adirondack Cove.

Wednesday brought pleasant wind conditions and we took advantage in the morning to sail a big loop from the Palisades, across to the Vermont side and then south as far as Scotch Bonnet, arriving back at basecamp around lunch time. Swimming, eating, and telling sea stories preceded our transition toward the second phase of the camp week. In brisk mid-afternoon wind conditions, the group sailed the dinghies for the final time across the lake back to the Museum’s North Harbor where we said goodbye, and met our second set of sailing craft: Sugar Moon and Beluga, Lake Champlain Maritime Museum’s two 29′ whaleboats! We assigned the six-person crews to each whaleboat and practiced the basics of sailing these larger vessels on our way back to Adirondack Cove, then prepped for the final dinner at the first basecamp and discussed the plans for Thursday and Friday. Forecasts looked good for us to journey by whaleboat north to Kingsland Bay for our overnight expedition.

Thursday morning the campers mobilized early to prepare for our journey. Each sailor broke down their tent and loaded their gear into dry bags before breakfast. After eating and cleaning up we packed the group gear and began loading and lashing it all into the whaleboats. Before 9:30 am we were underway and heading north, “running” with the wind 8-10 kts of wind behind us. In these gentle conditions, the crews rotated through positions on the tiller, the main and jib sheets, and as bow lookout, getting accustomed to the larger boats and how they sailed compared to the dinghies. We reached Diamond Island before 10:30 and turned to the east, heading toward nearby Kingsland Bay – conditions were so pleasant that we tacked back for another reach across toward Split Rock Point, having fun testing the whaleboats’ fastest points of sail before heading toward our final destination. At this point the campers learned the valuable lesson that pleasant sailing conditions rarely last forever as the strong headwinds build out of the bay. Beluga managed to make some distance tacking upwind halfway into the bay before switching to oar-power, but Sugar Moon caught the brunt of the increased south wind and tucked into shelter of a smaller inlet near the mouth of Kingsland Bay. Once Beluga was safely sheltered near the Kingsland Bay campsite, reinforcements were sent back to Sugar Moon with extra oars to reunite the boats. By the time they were both at the campsite, it was not yet even noon and all hands were ready for bed! The afternoon was spent setting up camp, securing boats, napping and swimming. Thunderstorms threatened in the evening but didn’t interrupt our final dinner and debrief activity.

Friday morning we again packed camp quickly and set about loading boats but the weather was dictating the schedule. Overnight, the wind had switched to the north and built into a strong 15-20 kts. Once the boats were loaded, it was a game of “hurry-up and wait” for the wind to relax so that we could escape Kingsland Bay. While waiting, we went for a scenic hike around the park trails, monitoring the wind conditions on the lake and finishing up last snacks. By noon, the wind had settled down to 10 kts from the north and we set out, rowing easily out of the harbor and setting sail for a pleasant final passage back to North Harbor. Arriving around 2 pm, we had just enough time to stow equipment, unpack and repack personal gear, and have a celebratory ice-cream prior to pick up at 3 pm.

Enjoy photos from the trip below and thoughts from our participants: