Ebb or Flood that is the question

Departure from Scituate was under overcast sky and with little wind, but within 30 minutes the wind grew so that we could sail towards the canal. With time the wind turned and we were heading further out into the middle of the canal. At this time I checked the tide time in the canal and realized that I had my ebb and flood confused. The current would be against us as we arrived. We had two options – anchor near the canal and wait for the current to turn to an “ebb” current, or turn further east and head to Provincetown. We chose the second and had a wonderful sail reaching speeds of 8.5kts (theoretical hull speed in this boat is 7.4kts) under spinnaker and mainsail on a beam reach.

The forecast for the night was for continuous wind and it would turn to the north and then with time from the NE and to the E. Clearly a low pressure system was coming up the east coast. As we set of from the harbor we quickly got out the sails and had several hours of great sailing. Once we turned around the tip of P-town we hoisted the spinnaker and sailed across Cape Cod bay to the Cape Cod canal. Again, at times we reached 8 knots. We arrived at the canal by about noon which allowed us to use the last couple of hours of the ebb current. Of course it only took about an hour because our speed over ground was over 10kts.

Once we exited the canal we turned south and anchored off the tip of “Wings Neck” for a teleconference. We then weighed anchor and headed into Red Brook Harbor where we stayed at Kingman Yacht center for the night. The approach was winding and narrow to say the least – a couple of years ago we wouldn’t have tried it. But following with buoys we were fine.

I could get into the life of working in the morning, sailing, then holding telecons on the fly. Maybe this afternoon’s telecom will be done under sail power.