- 37.3 miles
- 5 hours 59 minutes
- 6.2 mph average speed
We were up early in order to make the first lock opening at 7:00. Today we went through 9 locks between Waterford and Amsterdam! The total lift was 241 feet. We traveled with Star Dust and Rose Cottage all day.
The Erie Canal was built to connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Great Lakes. The original Erie Canal was built between 1817 and 1825 and the current canal was completed in 1918. The canal runs about 360 miles between the Hudson River in Albany and to Lake Erie in Buffalo and raises and lowers boats over 570 feet.
The first five locks (E2-E6) are known as the Waterford Flight. The Waterford Flight, built in 1907, raises boats 169 feet from the Hudson River to the Mohawk River. Each lock has a lift of 33 to 34.5 feet and the distance from lock E2 to E6 is only about 1.5 miles which makes this the greatest lift in the shortest distance on any canal in the world and greater than the total lift of the entire Panama Canal. As mentioned in the previous post, these locks were built so that mariners could bypass the Cohoes Falls. Ellen took a screenshot of Google maps when we were at the falls that shows why the Waterford Flight was necessary and how it diverts marine traffic around the falls. It took us about two hours to go through the Waterford Flight.
Next to lock E2, is the site of the 1823 Side-Cut Locks which were built to allow boat traffic from the Hudson River to the Champlain Canal. Mules were used to pull boats through the locks with ropes.
Some photos of Perfect Match taken by our buddy boats:
