Day 7 – Belfast back to Camden, via a different route, and with wind

We woke to fog in Belfast and based on the forecast of a small craft advisory with winds gusting to 30 knots, we decided to change the headsail to our 90% headsail. We did this is record time – for the two of us at least – of 15 minutes. We dropped the 135 genoa, folded (well…..) and then raised the 90%. Fortunately in the public docks that we used overnight we woke to be facing the wind that allowed this to be a simple task. Later, we were really pleased to have made this decision, as Day 7 turned out to be windy and really good sailing.

Before departing Belfast we watched the launch of a boat from French and Webb, a local boat builder/restorer that specializes in woodwork.

We headed out of Belfast with radar running – Yolande at the helm and disembarking Prairie Gold – and headed east. We soon got the sails out and began sailing in about 10 kts of wind. After an hour the wind dropped and we had to turn on the iron sails to get around the northern tip of Isleboro. After coming out of the lee of the island the winds picked up again and we tacked south and along the eastern side of Isleboro. In dense fog the temperature dropped to 60 degrees F and we added layers of clothing to keep warm. We had planned to have salad for lunch but were so cold that we decided to heat up a package of prepared food.

We continued to tack and apparent winds were gusting to 30 kts. At one point we had the main reefed quite dramatically to reduce weather helm, although we had a full 90% headsail for the entire day. If we had left the 135% genoa on as our headsail we would have had to reef it as well and then have to work with the resulting poor sail shape and reduction in sailing performance.

As we were taking our last tack across the eastern Penobscot we were able to head through a passage between Saddle and Mark Islands. We noticed a dramatic temperature change as we entered the western Penobscot. The temperature rose from 63 degrees to 73 degrees almost instantly, the fog lifted and we were able to continue on into Camden on a close reach. After getting into the public docks we noted the temperature there was 83 degrees F.

This was the best sailing of the vacation with the sails in use for all but an hour of our journey that commenced at 9:20am and finished at 5pm.