Bras d'Or Lake
We've driven all over Nova Scotia and Cape Brenton Island. Many wonderful places to sail before you go to Ireland. However, a great place to store your boat would be Bras D'Or Lake which is a wonderful long lake in the middle of Cape Brenton Island.
It is a most fitting place as a "start" for your trip across the Atlantic. An Atlantic voyage starting from there began the wheels turning to the founding of the
Cruising Club of America (CCA).
I'll quote from
Nowhere is Too Far: The Annals of the Cruising Club of America :
"We come now to the
Typhoonn saga, which resulted in the founding of the Cruising Club of America. In the autumn of 1920, [William] Nutting and his friend Casey Baldwin were duck shooting in the Bras d'Or Lakes and living aboard [CCA] charter member Gilbert Grosvenor's 54-foot yawl
Elsie. One night in her cabin...they conceived the idea of
Typhoon and the Atlantic crossing. In the Bras d'Or Lakes today, Elsie still flies the CCA burgee.
Typhoon, a gaff-rigged ketch, was designed by William Atkin, She was 45 feet overall, 35 feet on the waterline, 12 feet beam and something over 6 feet in draft. Her auxiliary engine never really functioned, and by today's standards she was crude indeed. Actually, she does not compare favorably with similar-sized fishing vessels of that era.
Typhoon was launched on June 30, 1921 at Baddeck in the Bras d'Or Lakes, and got underway for England on July 18 at 1:40 a.m."
The story goes on to tells us that
"off Newfoundland they ran into what appears to have been a summer northeast blow and had a nasty night of it under jib and mizzen. From then on they experienced the thick weather and hard westerlies of those regions. On occasion, when tired, they all turned in and let the boat take care of herself under a jib. Their navigation consisted of about one sight a day, laboriously worked out, as they were not experienced in this department. The only serious mishap occurred when an inadvertent jibe carried away the mizzen shrouds, but repairs were effected. Nutting was learning, as rather naive conclusions about various sail combinations recorded in his log show. They did not hesitate to drive the
Typhoon, and arrived in Cowes on August 9th, twenty-two days out, a most creditable performance. They lay at anchor in Cowes until August 31, and Bill Nutting's charm and enthusiasm sparked a warm welcome from British yachtsmen. Such small boat passages were unusual in those days, and he was a real ambassador of good will. Most important of all, he bacame the friend of Claud Worth of
Tern III fame and the Royal Cruising Club. It was from his talks with Worth that Nutting conceived the idea of the Cruising Club of America, patterned on the British organization. ...
The CCA was founded in 1922."
Bras D'Or Lake seems like a great place to make your start! Visit
Elsie while you're there. She was on the market a few years ago and I think she's still there.
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