A Tale of Two Chemists

Castine and the Maine Maritime Academy ... Tuesday 4th September 2012

This morning we had only a short hop from Orcutt Harbor to Castine. We debated about motoring or sailing. Deciding to let the pot density decide the issue when we got out into open water, we set out. The obligatory motoring to leave the harbor and charge the refrigeration got us to the end of Thrumcap Ledge. We had observed a pretty boat with red roller furling sailing off to our port side. At least while we were motoring, we were pulling ahead of it. We decided to sail just using the genoa, as we were now on a broad reach and knew that later we would be going down wind and one sail can be as good as two if you are dead downwind. We seemed to be moving along fairly well, making speeds of about 5.5 knots. Somehow I lost sight of the red-furling boat until we came to round the point at Cape Rosier. Suddenly we noticed that they were pretty close behind us. We also noticed that we had lost some speed as we turned more downwind It seemed that the humiliation of being overtaken was inevitable. (Not that we are competitive, of course). We fooled a bit with the genoa, moving the car forward and letting the sail out a bit more, and were moving along at about 3.5 to 4.0 knots. We looked back and noted that the red-furling boat was going wing-on-wing down wind (this is a mode of sailing with the mainsail out on one side and the genoa out on the other). It still seemed certain that they would overtake us. But as time went on it became clear that surprisingly we were drawing ahead of them. I mentioned this to Mike. He looked back at them and said: “I don’t think those guys know what they are doing”. Somehow I had to concur. Eventually they shot off across they bay as if they were heading to Islesboro or Belfast. I imagine them saying of us “Those two don’t know what they are doing.” I would still have to agree.

In the afternoon we took the "dumb dog" (our dinghy) into Castine and we were impressed. The site of the town was an important strategic military location overlooking Penobscot Bay and consequently has been fought over for many centuries. Since the early 1600's it has been occupied by French, Dutch, British and American forces. There are many 18th and 19th century Georgian and Federal houses and it's not hard to believe that this was once one of wealthier towns in the USA. The town is now home to the Maine Maritime Academy and as you come into the harbor you can't miss their training ship , the "State of Maine" - it's massive (500ft long) and overshadows everything else in the harbor. The academy has about 900 students and offers degrees in engineering, ship operations, marine science, maritime management, and small vessel design and operation. We saw lots of students walking around and they seemed a really friendly and polite group of people. The weather turned rainy later in the afternoon (the remnants of Isaac) so we headed back to the boat and settled in for quiet evening. It's not supposed to clear up until wednesday night so we'll probably stay here tomorrow as well.