Final ships log of the season
Trip Start
May 05, 2010
1
22
Trip End
Oct 01, 2010
Wickford, Rhode Island
Saturday, September 18, 2010
It’s a small tip of the state that touches the Ocean. Its so small, its easy to run by but not hard to find. Its at the end of a river and a very big one at that. We had been in here one time before but never went ashore. There are a couple of challenges to getting into new Hampshire. Boating wise the river runs very fast. It’s the fastest current found on the east coast. This mean entry can be slow at best or dangerous at worst. You have to be mindful of weather, tidal status and shipping. Secondly the city is spread over a wide area of rivers, island and such. So a visitor without a car has to plan carefully.
We had read that they city has a small, centrally located marina that is offered for free for up to 3 nights. It was in the center of town and appeared to be interesting although I am skeptical of free city marinas. Often they are poorly maintained and a great place to bang up your vessel.
We get into the river late in the day. The weather is perfect with perfect blue skies and perfect temps. It’s a boaters dream. There is an anchorage near the mouth of the river but we steam past moving upriver toward town and the marina. We had tried to call the marina to verify but as is often the case these days…..voice mail. No one had returned the call.
The current when we entered the river stated at about 1 knot and then built steadily to 2 then 2 ½. About 2 miles up the river Im starting to see current eddies and the SOG (speed over ground) had dropped to 4 and sometimes less than 4. Sue is still keen to get there but Im done. We had still another mile and we were bucking a 4 knot current in a 7 knot boat. Not for me. We come about.
Well to make a long story shorter…..we go back and anchor out and had a beautiful evening in a perfect setting. That evening someone from the marina calls and explains that we can take a tie in the morning. "How difficult is the docking?", I ask. “Some think its easy, some never make it”, I was told. That’s not too helpful. I mutter. He said to come in at slack water so we get a good timing the next day at 0800….perfect.
So we make way at 0745 and encounter only a 1 knot head current. Much better. Finally I see the small marina near a bridge. Having learned the hard way, we do a ‘fly by’ to see what conditions are…..wow…..we get nearly pushed sideways by a monster current. I have to go to near full power to recover before we hit a nearby buoy. My heart is beating like a hammer as I move back toward the marina. I can see the current swirls and I also see an open slip just on the inside of the face dock. How the blazes can I get in there without getting pinned or crashing into one of the nearby boats? Unlike the small sailboats that are in there now, First Forty is very much susceptible to current due to our large underbody.
I make another pass, same result…..I’m nearly spun around and I’m at full power to get the bow back into the current. Then I recalled my last experience (unpleasant) with this kind of current…..vector….vector against the current. Before I knew it the boat was at about a 45 degree angle to the current and we were slowly moving toward to marina fairway. Damn, its working…..we are moving in….Sue is silent….my heart is beating like a hammer. …..too late to abort now. We get inside the fairway, I hit the throttle at full right rudder to turn the bow in….. we are in the slip but I smash pretty hard against the side. Well at least we are in and safe.
Once tied up, we had a great idea for the day. The Boston air show was in town so we had a chance to see not only the Blue Angels but also a full day of planes and flying. In short the air show was a two sided coin. The flying and planes were amazing. We have all seen the Blue Angels on television and we know what to expect: amazing close quarters maneuvers. In live performance the things they can do seem surreal in planes going hundreds of miles per hour. Perfect…..but again its perfect of die. How they can do what they do at such speeds and with such distances really does boggle the mind. The close quarters work is one thing but sometimes the come together in crossing patterns from thousands of feet apart. The who show lasts about 45 minutes. Ill bet when they do it, it feels like five. That is a lot of intensity packed into each minute.
While the Blue Angels were the headliner, the most exciting by far was Sean Tucker who flies a small bi-plane sponsored by Oracle ( http://www.oracle.com/cluboracle/teamoracle/about.html). With the Blue Angels you know what to expect. With Tucker, you don’t….and he blows away any thought you might have about stunt flying. His plane is a super high performance job weighing only 1600 pounds but carries a 350 hp engine. He does things in that plane that just seem supernatural. He is known as one of the most daring aerobatic flyers in the world. His performance was dazzeling and he narrated the show on the radio as he did things that would have never seemed possible. Follow the link and watch one of his videos. Its worth your time.
While the planes were grate the show organization left a lot to be desired. Portsmouth had not hosted an air show in years and the they had a crowd of 10-15,000 folks all standing on the tarmac at the Portsmouth airport. The problem was they had only 5 food lines which meant there were 300’ lines at each one during lunch. There was little if any sun shelter and it was in the low 90s. Add to this the fact that they would not allow any drinks in from the outside and a bottle of water was $3 meant many folks were seriously dehydrated. They were ‘dropping like flies’ as they say. We hoped they would run a better event next time.
The next day it was time to seriously head south. We had been aware of a pending hurricane down south and we began to think about our plans should it turn toward New England. When we cruise up here, the idea of a hurricane seems out of mind. In fact, we have never encountered a thunderstorm north of Long Island so taking shelter from a hurricane is not normally on our radar. But when you talk to folks you understand that there have been major hurricane hits up here. Not many, but major when they do come. So we have been paying attention and this one looks credible. Still we had more stops on the itinerary. We had hoped to hit Cape Cod again and also go to Martha’s Vineyard where we had been planning to go for several seasons.
After successfully getting off the old docks at the Portsmouth City Marina, we head to open ocean on another perfect day. These are the kind of days we dream of…..cool temps, bright skies and nearly flat water. In fact the weather has been so calm this season we have hardly wet the deck (taken spray). The hardest going was back several months on Chesapeake Bay, but today its ideal….a cake walk. We pass Isle of Shoals, a very small set of islands perhaps 10 miles off of Portsmouth. We had really wanted to stop here and we think about it. There is really nothing much there but some old history. I like that kind of thing. This is the place that was the subject of the movie “Weight of Water” where the grisly ax murders took place. See the movie. It’s a good one but with the pending hurricane we opt to press on. Isle of Shoals will wait until next season.
We take two more nights to get back to Newport including an exilerating ride through the Cape Cod canal. Both times we hit the current right but this time the water was moving with us at a pace I could call “near rapids”. First Forty hit 11 kts on the GPS….that’s moving.
As we get closer to Rhode Island the temperature begins to climb again reminding us of how nice it was to be in Maine this summer and how easy it would have been to stay another week or two. Still here we are. By late afternoon we are off Newport in windy conditions. It was blowing about 25 kts which would have been rough going for a lot of 40 footers but in First Forty we are dry, warm and enjoying the views. In fact we say one of the world class racers named “Puma” apparently practicing offshore. It’s a world class vessel to be sure. Its an Open 70 and competes in the Volvo Ocean race, the grand daddy of daring round the world racing. Its sails graphically depicting the fast black cat of which the vessel is named. Check this link to see what we speak of: http://www.pumaoceanracing.com/us/en/
We plan to anchor at Newport harbor and take stock of our plans to prepare for the hurricane.
Coming into the harbor we could already see fewer vessels. It was clear plans were underway for the anticipated storm. Once the anchor was down we even noticed other large yachts begin to be moving out. The next day we began to work on plans in earnest. This meant getting some additional fenders (which we needed) and also finding a physical place to go. This sounded easy as there are man marina’s and mooring fields in various places in Naraganset Bay which primarily defines Rhode Island. But was we made calls it became painfully clear that transient boaters are at a major disadvantage. No one would take us migrants. We were consistently told that they would not rent us space. We talked to other visiting yachts and found some heading for Long Island Sound and others who were simply going to take cover in creeks. We didn’t want to head west and were not comfortable staying on the boat with winds predicted to hit 50-60 knots.
As has happened earlier this season, our guardian angel re-appeared. My good friend Dick Pedoni called and said he may be able to pull stings at Wickford Ship Yard ( the marina in Wickford RI where we had the fridge replaced two months earlier). When I called, no one would call me back….all tied up prepping boats for the storm, but I got a relay message from Dick who suggested we get First Forty over there that afternoon and start tying down.
We did get into Wickford and after some ins and outs trying to get the boat into a slip that was barely big enough we were tied up. Later we added more emergency fenders and lots of additional bow and stern lines. After that, it was all we could do. Now it was up to mother nature.
We had now been in the marina for two nights and the storm was due in that afternoon. To make a long story short, we had been ready to expect winds hitting 30 knots by 3pm and 50-60 by midnight. It didn’t happen. We continued to read the internet reports of the storm bearing east. It was a miss. The storm never game in. But dispite the fact that we had altered our plans dramatically and spent 5-6 days positioning and prepping, who could be disappointed you didn’t get into a tropical storm? We were elated that we had not taken any damage in the all to narrow slip. Life would be good again.
The next day we left wickford and got back onto our plans of getting to the Irish Music fest at Newport for the Labor Day weekend. While the winds were less than planned for the storm, the 2 hour trip back to Newport was really a wild one. Winds hit 30 knots as the ‘forty broke waves and took spray. Anchoring was a challenge but we did get a good hook set in the anchorage now thinly populated.
So we enjoyed the festival of two days of terrific Irish acts. Ive been a fan of traditional Irish music for decades (I used to refer to such as years, but Im older now). It was great to see the Makem Bros (or now their children – still brothers) playing (www.makem.com) as well as many others. Newport Events really knows how to put on a festival. Unlike the air show in New Hampshire, this one ran like clockwork with ample space, food and yes beer. The most interesting of the acts was a group of young Irish gals who I didn’t expect much of when they came on stage but they were great. It was the Screaming Orphans (www.thescreamingorphans.com). All were sisters although you could not see it by looking. It was a great show and we will be back next year.
Its been a great summer but we had one more outing to cap it off. For the past two trips to New England we had planned to visit Martha’s Vineyard and it had not happened for one reason or another. Earlier this year it was just too hot to stay around….we headed for Maine. So with one more day’s rest, we made our departure for the Vineyard. Its only about a 6 hour trip but getting there requires some planner considering currents and weather. We carefully consulted with the current almanac and had out plan to go to the south side of Cutty Hunk and hope to anchor in a little lake accessible by a small cut.
We did get to the Vineyard but not without angst. We found we arrived there at dead low. The cruing guide said we could get into the cut with 2 feet to spare and dead low…..no way. I head into the cut which was only 50 feet wide. A boat lenght in we hit old mother earth…. Luckily we still had some ebb current and as I turned the wheel hard to port the current helped spin us around and in a about 30 seconds we had done a 180 and were back in deeper water. This was a pretty scary situation but we were fortunate that the bottom was sand and not rock. We abandon that plan but found we had done a very stupid things- we had no back up place to go.
We were getting late in the day but had to make our way to Woods Hole known as one of the most tretherous spots in New England. I had no real course laid for the Hole and had not studied the charts. We got in battling current and less than obvious marks. I was very glad to get the anchor down despite the fact that we were in a very rolly place.
The next day we made it into Lake Toshmoo the next day. It’s a beautiful and well protected anchorage. Once you get in (easier if you stay to the east side of the cut) there is plenty of anchorage and a nearby dinghy dock. One of the main towns is but a 20 minute walk.
MV was a good time, but now we knew our summer cruise was complete. It had been an exceptional summer with near perfect weather, lots of music and food. It was time to head in. So the next day we make the 6 hour return to Rhode Island. By keeping the First Forty up north we avoid a 3 week return trip down the ICW and also give the same advantage next spring. We had discussed this all summer and finally made the firm decision: First Forty will winter at Wickford Ship Yard in Rhode Island.
To me laying the boat up after a great summer about as much fun as putting away the Christmas tree. Still as one old song says “tourist traps are empty…air is turning cool”. We could see this on MV and indeed the weather was changing. So we head into Wickford RI and spend 4 long, hard days cleaning and putting the First Forty to sleep for the winter.
To say this cruise was great is an understatement. Not perfect to be sure, but ….well damn close.
If you have read or even skimmed this far, you deserve my thanks and a medal if I had one to give. I'll leave you with the old Buffet lyrics that make so much sense at the end of a cruise:
Drink it up, this one's for you
It's been a lovely cruise
I'm sorry it's ending, oh it's sad, but it's true
It's been a lovely cruise
These moments we're left with
May you always remember
These moments are shared by so few
There's wind in our hair and there's water in our shoes
It's been a lovely cruise
Join us in 2011 as the mighty First Forty again cruises the waters of New England! Oh yes, Art the plastic parrot has earned a place on my bar back home for the off season. After years of being our surrogate pet, he has come home.
* * * * *
