Memorial Day weekend sail -Boston - Provincetown - Scituate - Boston

Our second overnight excursion of the season was from Boston out to the tip of cape cod (P-town) where we stayed overnight, and then return to Boston via Scituate. This three day trip was quite relaxing. True winds were never more than 15 knots so there was no need to reef the sails, and we had high speeds of up to 8.5 kts. Now for you land lovers, that is equivalent to about 10 miles per hour. So next time you are in a traffic jam have a different perspective - at that speed in a sailboat it feels like you are flying.

Boston to Provincetown includes some documentation of the Boston Harbor Islands, as well as our approach to P-town.


In the Scituate leg, the approach to Scituate is particularly nice.


In the final leg back to Boston, we race another 36foot sailboat (and win) into the harbor. They were way ahead of us and we really caught up on them. Not certain if they knew that they were in a race - but if they didn't they should be ashamed for not paying better attention.

Example of the Boston Inner HArbor and Sailing Traffic

We headed out to Long Island with 20-25kts apparent winds and double reefed sails. As we came back in we had to navigate around four groups of small sailboats having their evening races. This is a normal hazard in the harbor. At times vexing because the boats ignore the rules of the road so that we have to make all of the avoidance maneuvers.

Its great to be on the water again

We had a great weekend sailing to Salem and back. On Saturday the winds were light but we ended up using our spinnaker to sail in around the many rocks and islands of the Marblehead and Salem approach. Added to the fun were numerous small sailboats racing. We picked up a mooring in Salem and went for dinner at Finz. It was packed, due to graduation, and prior to getting a table we sat at the bar and were mesmerized by the skills of a drink mixer - she was so fast. On Sunday we left Salem at 9:40am and had to motor back to Nahant, but then with a little breeze we put up the spinnaker and were initially sailing at 1.2kts, then 2kts, then 3 and ..... until over 7 kts. As we approached Spectacle Island we gybed - always an interesting event with a spinnaker - and sailed into the inner harbor. On the way in we were passed by our friends on Fujin (they were heading out). We took down the spinnaker and decided the conditions were too good to go back to the marina and so we turned around and sailed out to Long Island where we gybed and raised the spinnaker again. Definitely the best sailing day of the season - so far.

Here we are heading southwest along the north channel east of Dear Island as a beautiful boat heads northeast

Can you guess where we are?

A test of the underwater camera

Rachel bought me an underwater camera for my birthday, so I let it take a swim off Spectacle Island to see if it works. I guess the real test is whether it works next time that I turn it on.

Morning Sail on Mother's Day

Over mothers day weekend we sailed about 70nm. On Saturday we sailed to Scituate harbor with the goal of staying overnight. However, when we go there it appeared that the marinas were not yet active. Mooring balls were in place, but since we dont drag a dingy we turned back to Boston to spend the late evening eating oysters at the waterfront cafe in the north end. During the sail the winds built while we had our spinnaker up. We got to about 8.2kts and then decided it was time to take her down. We also caught our first lobster pot of the season on our fishing lure. On Sunday we set out at around 10am, headed out the north channel and then came in under spinnaker and anchored off Spectacle island for a mother's day bbq followed by a nap (at least for the skipper). Then we sailed back in the short distance to the marina under shifting winds. Lots of sail trim adjustments and a fun time. Looking back to Boston from Spectacle Island

Anchored off Spectacle Island for a Mother's Day BBQ

Inadvertant distress call by Bluebell

Monday evening we took a brief sail out to spectacle island and castle island. On the journey we heard a coastguard message on VHF channel 16 that a multihull boat had a distress call as it was transiting from Marina Bay to Constitution marina. You may remember we took this journey a little over a week ago as we took Prairie Gold from her winter to summer home. We placed diligent lookout and noticed a multihull ahead, then a state police boat. Fortunately, all was well on Bluebell - apparently they had inadvertently pressed the distress buttion. We were happy with the outcome, although there was a little excitement when we thought we might have to call the coastguard to inform them that Bluebell was safe and sound. (You may remember our excitement about being hailed by warship #4 off San Diego in November 2010.) When we returned to Constitution Marina later in the evening we were surprised to find Bluebell immediately behind us on our dock. As we get to know the skipper I am sure we will give them a beer and chuckle about the moment.

More maintenance then sailing

Sunday morning started off cold and dreary, therefore after trips to two West Marine I set about the list of maintenance items which included changing the fuel filters, bleeding the lines and restarting the engine. A new task I had not done before was to change the belt that drives the raw water pump. It is difficult to find instructions on how to do this online. As with most of these items a little common sense prevails. The difficulty is that the raw water belt is behind the V-belt. So as shown in this sequence of images I first removed the V belt cover, then loosened the alternator so that I could take off the v belt. Subsequently the raw water pump had to be taken off its mounts so that there was enough slack to take off the belt. Then reverse the order (with a new belt) and everything worked. - Front view of the engine (Yanmar 3YM30) from inside the boat (Catalina 350 mkII)

V belt cover removed

Alternator loosened (bolt is accessible from the front) to allow the v-belt to be removed

Raw water pump physically disconnected to allow removal of belt

After cleaning and reorganizing in the galley we got ready to set sail. Winds were about 10kts out of the NE so we tacked along the main channel of the harbor to President's Roads. On our return we then either ran - wing on wing - or were on a borad reach to the marina. In the picture of the headsail you can see a patch near the top of the sail that was attached by Doyle Sails (Salem MA) over the winter.

Tibetan Prayer Flags

when sailing in the BVI our friends, who have visited Tibet, gave us Tibetan prayer flags for Prairie Gold. I guess we are ready for anything now.

Ahh - Success

closer still

5 more minutes

i hope it goes back together

There is hope

Its an expensive jigsaw puzzle

Winch cleaning

Final Steps and we should be sailing

Yesterday evening we starting cleaning winch gears, cleaning water tanks and refilling them. Cleaning the winches is really a pleasing process. Perhaps (definitely) this weekend we will sail. Other than cleaning and final winch duties we are pretty much ready. I hope the next post will show sails in full action.