June 2019

In which we cruise up the New England coast, with a side trip to NYC.

We started June anchored in Newport, Rhode Island.  On Saturday, 1^st, we went for a long walk along Belle View Avenue and back along the cliff walk, exiting at 40 steps.  Sunday dawned foggy, so we waited for that to clear before heading ashore then walked to the northern end of the cliff walk to complete it, only to find that it was still foggy here.  Also, being Sunday, the world and his yappy dog had the same idea so we cut it short and returned to base.  On Monday, it was time to head up river.  We picked up at 10:15 and, with 1 reef in for a WNW’ly F4 sailed through the bridge.  Passing Cananicut Island the wind dropped and we were tempted to shake the reef out.  It was well to resist this as, as soon as we cleared it the wind increased to F5 and we had to put in a second so it was a spirited sail up to Goddard memorial State Park, dropping anchor at 13:20.

Anchor up at 09:00 on Tuesday and motored the couple of miles to Apponaug to be hauled out.  As before, they were very helpful and we were soon high, dry and ready for some work. Tuesday and Wednesday were mostly spent scraping and rubbing down, badly needed with several layers of anti-fouling to come off.  There were also a couple of other jobs to be done: draining and re-filling saildrive gearbox oil; replacing anode on propeller and freeing up bolts on steering gear so that I could take up some slack which had developed.  The boatyard helpfully loaned tools, an impact driver to remove to drain plug on the saildrive and a blowtorch to encourage movement of seized bolts on the steering quadrant.  These all accomplished, on Thursday we painted on the new anti-fouling and then packed and tidied, we were ready to leave Ruby on Friday.

 I needed to make one of my periodic visits to Scotland, to see Mr Lowe, the surgeon who had operated on me 5 years before and Elsie had arranged a house sit at New Rochelle, NY, to keep her entertained in my absence.  Public transport being as it is, in the States, I had hired a car for the trip down and used it to top up the propane cylinder before departure.  We then had a not very pleasant drive down the I95 but a much more pleasant welcome on arrival.  The house was very comfortable and our hosts, also sailors, took us out to dinner at their posh club.  Despite us putting on our best clothes (I even ironed my shirt!) we attracted a few side-long glances, but that didn’t put us off our very strong rum cocktails and dinner.  Interesting conversation – despite being life-long sailors, they were of the racing, rather than cruising, kind and had difficulty with envisaging sailing overnight on long passages.  They dropped us off at their house, then returned to the club and their moored motor yacht, on which they were setting off the following day for a river cruise.

While Elsie took the dog, Huck, out for his evening walk, I read the welcome notes in which it mentioned to be aware that he had a tendency to pick up bones.  Sure enough, he returned with one in his mouth.  Elsie couldn’t get him to drop it.  Could I?  I tried.  Growl.  Tried again. Snap, and a large hole appeared in the back of my left hand.  It was now 10 O’clock on a Friday evening, in America, with notoriously high healthcare costs and our medical insurance is only for hospitalisation and repatriation, not minor injuries. We sought advice from our hosts, by phone, but their preferred clinic was closed, so it was off to the local hospital.  As an ambulance would, no doubt cost hundreds of dollars, I decided to drive myself.  Our car was in the garage, which I knew how to open from the outside but not the inside. After a fruitless search for the relevant button, we used the emergency pull cord and drove out.  We now had to close the roller door. Again, I had to resort to ‘manual’ and, in my haste managed to trap a finger and heard the crunch of bone. Things did improve a bit after this as, marvellously, the local administration had a policy of paying medical costs for dog bites (they don’t want them unreported) but, by the time I had been treated and collected a prescription, it was 2 the following morning before we got to bed.  As I was flying out the following night, the fact that this was 7 AM UK time was relevant. On Saturday, I did indeed fly out for a scarce week in Scotland, leaving Elsie to have a great cultural week in The Big Apple.  I flew back in the following Friday, allowing me a day of culture at MOMA then, with another hire car, we returned to Ruby on Sunday 16^th.

Street art NYC

Our plan had been to have a fairly relaxing day on Monday and launch on Tuesday morning.  A look at the weather forecast showed that Tuesday was likely to be very wet so, with car available, we dashed out to do a big shop and prepared for a Monday morning launch.  Once again, the yard proved flexible and we were back in the water by 10:30.  We motored back to our anchorage at the park to check and top up the gearbox oil then it was off to Newport taking advantage of the ebb tide.  For about 4 miles.  Then something made me check bilges to discover that the engine was blowing out its coolant.  Back to the anchorage.  Wait for it to cool down.  Top up.  Run engine for 20 minutes. Then, cautiously, set off again.  This time, the coolant stayed where it should be and we made it back to Newport at 18:00.  Tuesday was, as predicted, fairly horrible so we just sheltered.  On Wednesday, we managed a few jobs, including replacing a hose on the salt water cooling system and installing plugs, that Elsie’s brother had kindly made, into the boarding ladder to, hopefully, stop it trying to eat our new dinghy. We had hoped to move on East on Thursday but again the weather was foul so we delayed.

We eventually got away on the Saturday morning, hoisting sail at 09:00 in a NW’ly F4 to broad reach down the river, gybe and continue along the coast, almost to the entrance of the Cape Cod Canal.  We anchored in Wings cove at 15:45, hoping for a relaxing end to the day.  It was not to be asst arrival checks showed that, once again, the engine was blowing out cooling water.  As we would have to motor through the canal, we could continue no further until this was fixed. We would receive no assistance the following day, it being Sunday so I would have plenty of time to play before handing the problem over to someone competent.  Once things had cooled down sufficiently, I started retracing steps and removed t he ‘boot’ on the end of the heat exchanger, where I had found debris weeks earlier.  The solution (I hoped) was in front of me.  The raw water and ‘fresh’ water cooling systems are separated here by the ‘boot’ being gripped on a bronze seal.  If this had not been done up tight enough…  Cleaned, tightened, run.  A few drips only – hurrah. 

Storm front, Wings Bay.

The tidal current through the canal determined our start on Sunday. It would turn in our favour at 09:00 so we readied at 8, gave the engine a good run and set off at 08:30.  We hoisted , reefed, sail before entering, just in case we had to shut down in a hurry and proceeded through at 1800 RPM, so as to not put too much stress on our still suspect engine. This gave us a speed through the water of about 5 ½ knots though, with a following wind and a building current, we saw 10 knots at times.  This was not quite enough to keep ahead of a following pusher tug and barge and we had to pull over to let them pass with about a mile to go.  Once clear of the canal we hoisted full sail, stopped the engine and accelerated away at 8 knots with a F3-4 on the beam.  This got us into Provincetown at 15:00 and we anchored just off the eastern end of the inner breakwater at the Town.  This time, there were no nasty surprises so we took what we thought was a well-earned rest.  On Monday, 24^th, we had a long stroll around the town in the morning and a shorter one to the supermarket in the afternoon.  As the wind was forecast to go southerly overnight, we picked up anchor and motored over to the town float for water (paid for with quarters in a slot – we paid $3 for about 50 gallons) then to the south of the harbour for a more comfortable berth for the night.  Looking ahead to the following day, it seemed that we would get a good sail over to Boston but could expect rain and, maybe, thunderstorms any time after 14:00.  We, accordingly, rose at 5 and were under way at 05:35.  We started with full plain sail but once we were sure that the wind was steady S3, brought out the cruising chute and had a great broad reach across. The wind started to die with about 8 miles to go so, with rain approaching, we put away the chute and reverted to motor-sailing under main and genoa.

Sunset, Provincetown

Boston harbour is a huge expanse but nor really welcoming to visiting yachts.  I glanced at marinas and saw that we could expect to pay anything from $150 – 280 per night, way above our budget.  There were no other anchored yachts but we had information showing where others had stopped in the past.  This gave conflicting advice so we worked out where we thought we would be least in the way – on the north side, clear of all commercial activity.  That evening, a coastguard boat stopped by.  I had put a flashing light in the cockpit to make us more conspicuous, and he objected to that, but not our position.  Two mornings later, the harbourmaster’s launch called by – his colleague had stopped the previous evening and wanted us to move (we had been on board).  He saw no problem, himself.  That evening, just as we were about to have dinner, said colleague arrived, siren blaring and shouted at us through his bullhorn.  We were to move to his designated spot, almost opposite the fuel dock, where we would be in the way of queueing ferries.  His harbour, we moved. The lack of provision for visitors extends to landing places for a dinghy.  There is one finger pier with space for a boat on each side.  One side is limited to 30 minutes; the other to 4 hours.  As each usually had a, hard, boat moored, we just snuck to the inshore end and tied to a cleat but it wouldn’t work if several dinghies wanted to park.

Boston by night

While in Boston, we took in some of the local history.  On Wednesday, we took a walking tour of the downtown area with an entertaining, and quite informative, guide.  A slow stroll back along the route took us to the ‘Cheers’ bar where we lunched and took photos, along with most of the clientele. 

Cheerts!

Thursday morning, we toured the State House (the ‘Parliament’ building for the state) once past a very easy security check, we were allowed to roam almost at will and had a guided tour with a very quietly spoken and somewhat confused guide. Lunch was a hotdog in the park, accompanied by some nice, easy, light jazz, then off for another tour in the afternoon t o look at some of the sites relevant to African American history in the town.  On Friday, we self-guided our way out through the north side of the town, past Paul Revere’s house and church to Bunker Hill, where the British won the opening battle of the war of independence but not convincingly enough to deter the colonials from continuing.  Down the hill, we visited the naval museum but missed out on visiting the historic ships as time was getting on.

Bunker Hill memorial

Our plan was still to get up to Canada as soon as practicable, but the weather was not co-operating.  The wind was either light or from ahead.  It looked, however, as though we might get a 24-hour slot of sailable wind starting on Saturday morning.  In order to take advantage of this, we picked up anchor at 16:20 on Friday and headed out to shorten our voyage by 10 miles or so.  At first, we had light wind right ahead but, once clear of the harbour, we were able to put it on the bow and hoisted full sail.  As we did so, the auto-pilot tripped out on low voltage (even though the batteries were fully charged).  Checking to battery monitor showed wildly fluctuating voltage and the charge controller was dark. We immediately shut down the engine to investigate.  Nothing obviously wrong and at the, second, re-start the problem disappeared.  Fingers crossed it was a one-off glitch but, when time permits, I will do a thorough investigation of wiring.  The wind built and veered, to give us a beam reach and 8 knots, so we passed by our intended stop and continued on to Marblehead.  This shallow bay is 2 miles long X ½ mile wide so you would think there would be plenty of space to anchor.  The entire area is, however, covered with over 2300 moorings.  The plan was to creep past the ‘no wake’ buoys and drop the hook before the mooring field.  Being New England, even this space was taken by fishing floats but, after a little searching, we found just enough space, anchored and tidied up.  A helpful local stopped by and told us that, as it was now 8 PM, we could take a club mooring.  As thunderstorms were forecast, we took this option and had a late supper.  A quick check of the weather showed that our hoped-for window had disappeared and we could only expect about 4 hours of wind around the middle of the following day.   While taking the mooring made us more secure in the event of strong winds, they completely died in the night and I was woken by the tump, tump, tump of the mooring buoy on the bow.  Oh well.

We woke to the sound of thunder and a sailing wind so let go at 07:20.  The first couple of hours went well and we hoped for a decent distance but, at the time the wind was forecast to start, it died so we popped into Rockport harbour and anchored in Sandy Bay. As usual, there were many fishing floats but we found a big space to anchor and had a lazy afternoon.   I was woken at midnight by a grating sound.  Fortunately, this came not from the keel but the anchor cable which must have wrapped itself round a rock.  Winds were light so we left it until morning, then shifted closer to the old harbour.  After a leisurely breakfast, we dinghied ashore and strolled round this very touristy town.  We passed on the tarot readings and lobster rolls but did manage to locate a grocery and a laundromat.  Ashore again in the afternoon to take advantage of the latter so, with nearly full fuel and water tanks ad clean clothes, we are ready to head up to Canada.  What could possibly go wrong?

June Stats: 

Over Ground   194
Log                  212