The challenges of boating

The challenges of boating   …   Sun 5^th – Wed 8^th July

Sunday was a really quiet day for us. I took out one “scenic” trip on the Ruth at 10.30 am and other than that we had no bookings. However, the morning had it’s element of excitement when Robin and Paul, the couple that we met on Saturday, set out to take their yacht “Bald Eagle” from Sebasco harbor round to Great Island Boat Yard in Quahog Bay. It’s a trip of about 6 or 8 miles, so no big deal, except they needed to complete it without the use of their engine (which was overheating) or, as it turned out, without much wind. Paul hitched his dinghy to the side of “Bald Eagle”, a 38 ft Sabre yacht, and they dropped the mooring. However, they were concerned about lack of speed and limited steerage, so I tied on our dinghy to the other side and with the double hip-tow in place we proceeded out of the harbor. Once clear of the entrance, “Bald Eagle” rolled out her genoa and proceeded under sail alone at about 2 knots until the breeze died altogether. Paul re-started their dinghy outboard and they were able to make decent progress, so I headed back to Sebasco to take out the Ruth trip. We later heard that Paul and Robin’s outboard overheated shortly after I left and they struggled on with just sails in minimal wind. The happy end to this story is that they re-appeared at Sebasco later the next day with their engine fixed and the prospects of their summer cruise alive again.

Monday and Tuesday were both really busy days for us. On Monday we took out a family of four (Mom, dad, daughter and cousin) on an “Islands and Bays- lunch cruise”, a 3 hour sail with a stop-over at a quiet anchorage for lunch. We went down to Ragged Island and dropped the anchor close to the wild and rocky shore with just guillemots for company. It was a good trip. Later that afternoon we took out a couple for a repeat sail. We took that as the strongest evidence that they really did enjoy their first trip, and we had an excellent sail with near perfect conditions. Monday’s sailing trips were sandwiched between two Ruth cruises, one starting at 9 am and the other finishing at 8.30pm, so it was a jam-packed day.

Tuesday was also quite frantic with three Cotinga trips scheduled and customers booked on all of them. Our first trip of the day was another lunch cruise, this time with 6 customers (4 adults and 2 children). The forecast was for increasing winds and seas so we chose a route that had us sailing westwards across the bay, then north into protected waters. It all went fine except for the heart stopping minutes where we snagged a lobster pot line and float about 45 minutes into the trip. The rudder suddenly went very stiff, we heard groaning from under the hull and we were just a couple of hundred yards from a rocky ledge. We quickly dropped sails and with some trepidation started the engine. We then made a slow, laborious turn to the south, with the intention of trying to get back to harbor, when “pop” – off it came, the steering freed up and there was a fluorescent green float bobbing behind. Panic over, we continued with our trip! Just in case anyone thinks we are totally incompetent (and I’d understand why you might think that) you have to realize that the density of pots up here is astonishing. You never get to sit back and steer from the side of the boat – you simply can’t see the pots well enough from that position. You can never, never relax and let your guard down. I didn’t see the pot we snagged until after it popped up behind and it may not be that I simply missed it. Today on the “Ruth”, we were heading up a narrow channel into the Basin, a standard part of our “scenic trip”, and the tide was running quite strongly, so Jack, our tour guide, was standing next to me to help spot pots. There must be about 50 pots in the space of two hundred yards, but two of then caused us concern on the way in because they were so sucked under you could only just see the tip of their wands. On the way out we kept an eye open for these two, but it was pure chance that we both looked down at the same time to see another float two feet under water passing the side of the hull. I love the coast of Maine, but the pots make the sailing “suck”. It was easier in a 16-foot day sailor where you could lean over and re-set the rudder if it was “tripped” by a pot.

Anyway, back to our schedule. We arrived back from the lunch trip shortly after 2.30 pm and picked up our next set of customers for a 3.00pm to 5.00pm cruise. Again we had 6 people signed up and with the winds increased significantly we decided too sail the outbound leg of our trip with genoa alone. This went fine, but once we reached Orrs Island and started to head back we were essentially becalmed and decided to raise our mainsail as well. The breeze picked up and we were enjoying a fine sail. Then the breeze picked up some more and we were now “enjoying” a lively sail at 7+ knots in short period waves of 3-4 feet … all the time trying to spot those lousy lobster pots. In the mean time, the fog rolled in and we could no longer see land! Thankfully, our GPS worked just fine and we were back in harbor in no time. Once we landed our customers on the dock, we heard that there was now a small craft advisory in place and we were happy (relieved) to be able to cancel our final trip of the day.

This morning, Wednesday, we awoke to fog and showers, but little wind. There were thunderstorms forecast for lunchtime but these never materialized. I decided that it was safe for the Ruth trip in the morning to go ahead, but due to poor weather, none of the 15 signed-up customers appeared. We did go out on a trip later in the afternoon. In fact we spent most of the day trying to resolve radar issues on Cotinga. Yesterday, in between the two trips we did make, we realized that our radar was not starting up. The system has worked flawlessly for 3 years, but no longer appears to be functional. We checked the obvious culprits … fuses, wiring connections, etc., and talked to the manufacturer (Simrad). Finally we dropped the radar pole and took off the radar dome. We opened this hermetically sealed unit only to find about a pint of water sloshing around. We confirmed that there is power arriving at the unit, but the scanner seems to be dead. So this afternoon we headed in to Bath and posted the radar unit back to Simrad to be repaired. To be honest, we haven’t needed the system since our overnight passage up from Cape Cod, but now without radar we feel a little vulnerable.

Tomorrow we have a full boat (6 people) for a 4 hour cruise in the afternoon, with a forecast for smooth seas and light winds from the east / south east. I’m excited that we might be able to sail a little further and in a different direction from usual.

Mike