Trip Reports – Block Island and Block Island

Yeah, it sounds a little repetitive.  But Block Island at this time of year is nice.  It’s a little too cool for the beaches but there aren’t any crowds.  All of the restaurants are pretty much open and there are few waits.  The only crowds are associated with sail boat racing which is not, in my view, a bad thing at all.

Trip #1 – Memorial Day
Memorial Day weekend we were still scrambling to get the boat ready for human habitation but we got off to an early start on Saturday morning.  It was a lovely day with wind dead on the nose for Block Island.  This is a common phenomena and one of our least favorite things about the trip to Block Island – the prevailing winds in this area run about 70% from the Southwest.  Which is also pretty much the course you steer to get to Block Island.   In addition it means you usually have a significant downwind trip home too, unless you run into the dreaded Sunday Northeasterly which seems to be unnaturally common given the percentages.

Impatient to get there after all of our work to leave we opted to motor instead of tacking all the way there in very light air when we left early in the morning.  With favorable tide we made a quick passage out, though the wind picked up it stayed dead on the nose.  We had a lot of friends racing out there and knew they’d be beating the whole way, but we just didn’t have the patience.  So we motored out while we played with the new electronics – running the radar on a clear sunny day so we could test it and learn it.  We were quite impressed by the time we arrived on Block just over four hours later.

With a lot of friends from our yacht club on the Island we had a nice weekend with friends and family.  Staying out too late, drinking a little too much and eating well – but that’s part of meeting everyone there for sure.  We woke up ready to leave on Monday with predictions of Southeasterly winds – exciting!  After a nice breakfast in town we headed back to the boat.

What a ride home, the Southeasterly winds filled and we had a fast, lovey sail home.  Reaching across Block Island Sound under full sail was a great way to stretch Evenstar’s legs after a long cold winter of dark and work.  Even heading up the bay when we turned to more of a down wind run the breeze was steady and strong.  Sailing all but a couple of miles of the trip is nice, and unusually so since on a weekend trip the pressure is to get there! in both directions since your time is so limited once you actually arrive.  Having good breeze to make a timely trip as a pleasure we don’t seem to get enough of trying to sandwich weekend jaunts between work weeks.

Trip #2 – Back to the Block
OK, we could have done this one in a Trawler and it wouldn’t have been much difference.

One nice thing about June trips is that it is light late, so if you leave early enough you can get where you are going Friday night and still drop the hook while there is daylight.  Of course…you really want to get there.  Again wind on the nose, and foul current to boot.  But we were going to make it Friday night, especially since the forecast for Saturday had the day starting to deteriorate into rain as it progressed.

For the first time we got to experience why I went through the trouble to install an AIS receiver.  For those late to the party, the Automated Identification System allows information about a vessel to be broadcast over a standard VHF frequency in digital format.  This includes information like the name, size, course, speed and destination of the vessel.  The information is limited by the same line of sight distance as VHF radio but with an antenna mounted on top of a mast you can often pick up detailed data on a ship well before you see it on radar or visually. 

This is helpful for a lot of reasons, but it does have limitations.  The refresh rate is fairly low, so fast moving vessels may not update on your screen as fast as they are actually moving.  With any of these tools you still have to use your brain, your eyes and some common sense.  But it is another too.  And the best thing about it?  You get the ship name. 

Many years ago when we took a trip across the gulf stream the most unnerving thing out there were the tankers.  Fast, huge and tough to turn – they can appear on the horizon and overtake you in half an hour.  If there is concern of a collision it is wise to contact the ship to let them know of your presence (sailboats are hard to see, and they could run a small boat down and not even know it if you didn’t scratch the paint up too much) and to make sure they know of any course changes you (and they) are making to avoid contact.  Of course raising on them on the radio when you don’t have their name is sometimes difficult…by the time you can read the name off the bow it is usually too late to worry about talking to them.  In theory they are supposed to have an English language radio operator…in practice, hailing the “East bound ship in the general vicinity of XX.xx by YY.yy this is the sailing vessel Evenstar” rarely gets a response.  Hailing the “Kobayashi Maru” by name on the shipping channels…that gets an answer.

So we had our first civil chat with a commercial vessel, where he indicated his preference for our taking his stern not crossing his bow and all drama was avoided.  Very nice.  Uneventful, unexciting.  Utterly thrilling.

The trip home was in fog, with visibility from 1/2 out to one full mile for much of the way.  I’ve never had such a clear picture of what was happening out there, and it felt really nice.  The only unfortunate thing on the trip was the wind – the dreaded Northeasterly all the way home which basically amounts to a motor slog if there’s not time to spend 6-7 hours beating back and forth up the bay.

We’re headed out again next weekend, and looking for something different.  We’re expecting a new arrival in the family this week – a little package that comes with sails, not diapers, so a nice dinghy friendly harbor with some good exploration potential is on the horizon.