Boston Islands Race

Our intention was to sail to Scituate for the weekend. However, the winds were low and as we started out past Hull we were just to slow for it to be pleasant. Consequently we headed back to George’s Island and picked up a mooring ball and barbequed burgers and ate them with a salad. On Saturday there was the annual Boston Harbor Islands sailboat race that took a course from Spectacle Island, down the Nubbles (between Long Island and Nixes mate) south of George’s island and then a 180 degree turn up the Narrows and back to Spectacle. The winds were low, sailing was slow, but it was a fantastic sight.

Here are some scenes.

Masses of Sailboats jockeying for position between Long Island and Spectacle Island.

At this point the boats are tacking down the channel from the Nubbles past George's Island

From the mooring at George's looking SE we can see the top of the mast of the boat "Shout" that is leading the race and is heading north on the eastern side of George's island heading up the Narrows.

Others are in hot pursuit

57nm, 11hours solo, winds to 30 knots. What a great Sunday

Sailing on Sunday included a diversity of conditions and lots of winch grinding. I woke at about 6am to torrential rain and high winds. So as not to get soaking wet at the beginning of a long day I waited until about 7am to cast of from the mooring ball. For the next 6 hours, all weather predictions were wrong.

Here is the old faithful red daymarker #2 which is the meeting point for the Salem water taxi so that they can show you to their transient moorings. When I arrived on Thursday, the lady on the launch said “Oh Prairie Gold, you know where the transient moorings are, go ahead and pick one up”. I guess we head here often.

As I headed out I took a picture of this sorry sailboat. Apparently it broke free of its mooring in Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and washed up on shore. The Salem people brought it back to life, and reattached it to a mooring ball, but the owner doesn’t want to pay the fees. So it is sitting there in limbo. Its companion way is open, its batteries must be flat, and is presumably accumulating water. A launch driver told me that everyone is just waiting for it to sink so that something can be done. So sad.

After the storm front passed there was an immediate drop in winds to about 6 knots ☹ and they shifted from south to west instantly. This was not in my plans that were based on Sailflow predictions. I motored out with the main up past the Miseries and went on to Stellwagen bank. I was heading straight into 6 foot swells at 6kts and was dying to use the head. In my rush to get sailing I forgot to “go”. Any way, after bouncing around a little, I managed to gain relief and get back to the helm – I will check for bruises. I hunted around Stellwagen for about 45 minutes but found no sign of humpbacks. Later on channel 78 I heard one of the Boston high speed whale watching cats bemoaning their lot that they hadn’t seen anything either. Well I guess I can go back, and I am sure I will.

Brunch consisted of bbqed bacon wrapped steak (health food) salad made form our veggie share including beetroot, corn on the cob, and homefries plus a glass of red wine. Life is good.

As I headed back from Stellwagen I was able to get close hauled and sail at a reasonable pace. However, my course was pretty much back to Salem. With time the wind turned further to the south allowing me to slowly turn towards Boston. As the winds subsided again I decided to change headsails. Remember, I had put the 90% headsail on last Friday morning in preparation for high winds. I started to lower the 90% and when it was ¾ of the way down I decided that this might not be a good move on my part as I was solo – seas were still quite bouncy - so I hoisted it again and just decided to sail a little slower. What a great decision it turned out to be.

On VHF the Boston coastguard kept giving weather announcements about a line of storms (see my previous post for the Doppler radar), that the storms were producing winds of up to 30kts, thunderstorms and after the storm passed there would be a wind shift to the west. Well this was great information, however, they didn’t start providing it until after the storm had passed and continued to provide it until the afternoon when it was beautifully sunny. I guess the good news is that there was little else for them to do on this Sunday.

When I was a few miles east of the NE Graves lighthouse the wind really kicked up again. It is now that I was pleased that I had not changed the headsail. I was close hauled sailing all the way back to Constitution marina with sustained winds of 20 kts, gusting to 30kts. I quickly reefed the main sail and was able to work beautifully in these winds. There was almost no weather helm and I was flying. I have been told before that you pick up speed when you reef because the rudder is no longer acting as a brake. I was passing every sailboat, most of them with full sail and really having problems dealing with the wind.

As I entered Boston harbor 4:15pm came the start of the Americas cup race in San Francisco. Oracle US (with one US sailor) was trailing 8-3, with the Kiwi boat only needing one more race to win the cup. I had an ear piece in my right ear connected to my phone listening to the commentary. The excitement of the race together with my own racing was awesome. In the harbor, winds were changing direction and speed, sometimes 6 knots sometimes 25 knots and with wind shifts of 30 degrees. Then in addition I had to avoid a cruise liner backing out of the port into the main channel, avoid one sailor from a collision because they don’t now that starboard tack is the stand on vessel – I should have asked for a penalty - and then had to avoid some tankers as I was tacking across the channel. This is what makes Boston sailing so fantastic, changing winds, lots of traffic, narrow channels, and I forgot to mention I was tacking against the current.

I arrived back to Constitution marina after 11hours of solo sailing for 57nm. A little tired. I decided to have a second glass of wine from the bottle, talked to my better half who is away, and decided I needed to head home soon otherwise I would fall asleep on Prairie Gold.

The fall is here, the winds are up.

By the way, Oracle won both of the races on Sunday – it is now 8-5. Tune in at 4:15pm eastern time today Monday for the next race. Go Oracle. I love their fighting spirit and unwillingness to buckle when their backs are against the wall.

Now I should go to work so that I can sail again soon.

Rain rain go away

Its been raining like crazy for the past hour. Just had my first cup of coffee for the morning, getting my thermos of coffee ready, then will head out. The wind is from the south at 20kts, and will turn SW, to W to NW during the day. So the current plan is to head out close hauled in a SE direction then keep close hauled and circle back to Boston with the change of wind direction. Good news is the radar is not showing thunder cells

So what's next?

You may ask, "where did you go today?" I didn't. I got back form the retreat late and by the time I was ready to sail it was 3pm and based on wind direction the earliest that I would reach a destination would be 10pm, or later. So I decided to sit tight, relax, drink a beer, cook dinner, and take an early night. My intention is to be up bright and early tomorrow, Sunday, and head to Stellwagen bank to look for whales. However, the wind looks to be gusting 30kts out there so I will wait and see conditions in the morning. Fortunately, I already put the 90% headsail on Prairie Gold before going to the retreat. So I am ready. One more beer, then sleep time.

Boston to salem ready for the retreat

After finishing my meeting at BioPharm in Boston yesterday I sailed - well motored - over to Salem.

There was about an hour of decent sailing but then the winds just died. However, the wind projections suggested that I wouldn't be able to sail at all, so I take it as a good day. Dinner was at Finz - oysters and IPA - then back to the boat for a good night of sleep.

Work started at about 4am and then I went up to watch the sun rise. Not a bad way to work. Realizing that I can connect my computer through a personal hotspot on my phone has changed my life. Doesn't matter where I am I can get the work done and enjoy the ocean too. Do you think there might be even more time on the boat next year? At noon, I will go to land for the Tufts Neuroscience retreat.

This morning there is no wind and I will take the opportunity to change the 135% genoa to our 90% headsail because tomorrow and Sunday, when I will be sailing, are projected to be high wind days. Since I am solo I will pull back on sail area for safety.

Solo weekend sail ahead

Tomorrow, Thursday afternoon I will sail solo over to the Beverly area where we have a work retreat Friday and Saturday. Noonish on Saturday I will then spend time sailing solo to a destination or two before returning back to Boston. Wind predictions are for ~20kts at the weekend, so it should be a fun time.

Salem again

On Saturday we headed out from Constitution Marina with the intent of going somewhere for the night. We used the faithful spinnaker and started down the north channel towards Salem on a broad reach. The wind dropped so we used the engine and once we were close to Marblehead, a sea breeze kicked up that allowed us to sail close hauled, with several tacks, into Salem harbor where we picked up a mooring ball from Salem Water taxi.

For dinner, we didn’t fancy anything spectacular and went to the Tavern in the Square for burgers. Back to Prairie Gold, one episode of Walking Dead and we were asleep by 9pm. After a great night of sleep on the gently rocking water we decided to head back to Salem for breakfast and the launch driver recommended Red’s. It was fantastic. Also their throughput was incredible. A table next to us left, within 40secs their table was cleaned and set for the next group. In another 40 seconds the group was seated and in 10 more seconds their drinks order was taken. Gordon Ramsey would have been proud of the service. The food was excellent and despite the throughput you didn’t feel rushed.

We expected to motor all the way home but as we got to Marblehead the wind came up. We were on a SE heading, close hauled racing others. After about 7nm we tacked and headed for home. As we approached Deer Island, the wind died and we motored to Lower Middle, at which time the wind grew again. Just before we raised the sail a sailboat tacked right across our path that caused us to turn immediately to port and pull a 360 degree turn to avoid a collision. Since we were motoring at 6kts at the time it wasn’t a pleasant manoever for Yolande who was standing at the time and didn’t have a firm hand hold. While I do realize that sailing vessels have right of way, shouldn’t sailors use common sense? This was a stupid maneuver on the sailboat’s part and gets good sailors a bad name.

With the sail up we had a glorious sail home. This gave us time to watch the second race of the day for the America’s cup. Those AC72s are phenomenal. I would love to get on one.

Is that a car in the water?

Mooring under sail

Just moored under sail power at spectacle island

Made it home

My type of marina

Motoring home. Then 4kts of wind came up so for the last mile we got out the sails. It was slow, but a fun way to end the weekend. 

Breakfast on a wet morning

Waiting for thunderstorms to clear. We are in the Hull MA area and stayed overnight at sunset marina - no sun this weekend