The ride from Maine back to Points South was a wild, fast one. Because of our boat though, it wasn’t so wet!
After labor day we started watching for our window to sail back South to Rhode Island, where we have a few things to attend to before heading for the Chesapeake. Some of the big concerns were several tropical storms and hurricanes that were making their way North. Even if you never come near them or see a cloud or drop of rain from a Hurricane it can make it’s presence known hundreds of miles away.
When it became clear that Hurricane Leslie wasn’t going to come North and clobber us, and apparently was going to meander out to see while a high pressure system came in and brought in a couple of days of Northerly winds…it was time to go.
Weather forecasting is something we’re still developing our skills with. The U.S. Government provides some pretty decent marine forecasts through NOAA, covering large scale areas and general trends. Also extensive weather maps and products are available there and also via WeatherFax on Single Sideband Radio. There are specialized weather routers that you pay for their analysis (we’re not doing this yet…), weather nets on the radio, weather forums on the internet, weather sites on the internet.
Just about the only thing that is absolutely no use at all is the weather you get on TV. Sorry folks, that’s pretty much useful to let you know if you should carry an umbrella or skip your plans to go to the beach. It’s not going to help you when you REALLY, REALLY care about the wind strength and direction in detail, never mind wave heights and directions and fronts coming through.
As best we could figure it, the predicted wind was to be 15-20 knots from the North and/or Northwest, with gusts up to 25 knots. Also there was expected to be some long swells from the offshore hurricane that was passing by, 7-9 foot rollers. Swells aren’t such a big problem when you sail, you just sort of roll over them. That wind direction and strength was perfect for us; the wind would be on the beam, or on a broad reach for most of the trip. (Tech note for you non sailors: a ‘Beam Reach’ is wind roughly 90 degrees from the bow of the boat, a Broad Reach is the wind slightly aft of a Beam Reach, up to about 135 degrees from the bow. Both are amongst the fastest and easiest places for the wind to be). Evenstar loves a lot of wind like that and we expected a fast sail.
The good news for the trip was the direction was spot on. Evenstar took off from Mt. Desert Island like a rocket and when we passed Long Island into the Gulf of Maine we were beam reaching along at over 9 knots of speed with our main sail, staysail, and Genoa all full and drawing. The sky was clear and the sun was shining and we were fast. Typically we plan our trips with a cruising speed of roughly 6 knots; this is to allow for light winds, tacking, sailing out of the way, current and other forces which can bring your average speed down. With nine knots under way we were covering a lot of water!
As the day wore on we enjoyed watching shearwaters and gannets flying around the boat, and passed a school of tuna making explosive splashes as they fed at the surface. Towards afternoon some cloud cover started to come in and the wind started to pick up. Shortly after we started reefing the sails. As we started thinking about dinner the wind picked up more, and by the time it was in the thirties we had struck the Genoa (the large front sail) and reefed the main sail down to a fraction of it’s size. We were still making 8-9 knots and more consistently. By now the rollers from the Southeast seemed to disappear and were replaced by steeper, large waves being pushed by the Northwest winds.
By sunset we were racing along with minimal sail area, with winds constantly around 30 knots, gusting up to 35. The waves built to about eight to ten feet, and we raced along with reefed down sails, sometimes surfing off large waves hitting speeds as high as 13 knots.
In the dark, with big waves, wind and high boat speed…it’s easy to get your inner ear out of sync with your surroundings. The end result of this is seasickness. If you make a few unwise choices in what you eat, it can make it worse. During the course of the night everyone at some point felt a little dodgy. The kids were most able to lie down and sleep which is the best remedy and neither of them fared to badly. I ended up with the worst of it as I was doing my best to stand my watches and sail the boat. The lack of a horizon on a dark night seems to make me more susceptible to this as I’ve gotten older – next passage I am breaking our one of the Scopalamine patches well in advance and not taking any chances.
The good side of all of this was that Evenstar handled this wind and weather, showing off her quality of build and seaworthiness. There was never a second of doubt that this weather was even making her break a sweat. Evenstar has a hard dodger, all Hallberg-Rassey yachts have a wind screen, and the hard dodger is usually an option. What does this mean? It means all the spray and waves tend to stay out of the cockpit, and you stay pretty dry. Not always warm since it’s open to the wind from behind but it does break most of the wind and water. When you see the waves forcefully spraying the windows instead of you…you become a believer!
The children enjoyed some gaudy shows of phosphorescence as we made some huge wakes and waves as the boat surged and powered through the water. As the night grew old a quarter moon rose, giving more light than expected. Before this the stars and planets were clear and glittering, with the moon they faded somewhat. But there is little light pollution thirty miles from land and you could see more stars when the clouds pulled back. As they did, the winds receded a bit as well.
By the time we passed Provincetown the wind had dropped to the predicted 20’s gusting to 25. Still we powered through the water at 8-9 knots. The morning dawned bright and clear as we reached the Cape Cod Canal less than 23 hours after leaving Southwest Harbor. As luck had it we caught the canal’s tides perfectly.
Since no one slept well the night before with all the bucking, rolling and noise from the wind we decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and stopping in the late morning in Mattapoissett would be best for the crew to catch our breath, pick up everything that flew off the shelves, and get ready for the last stage back to Rhode Island in a day or two.
