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s/v lefty, s/v sarah belle, s/v marsh hawk, s/v yankee
The website of the sailing vessel Lefty, my first boat, the website of the sailing vessel Sarah Belle, my second
boat, as well as my third boat, the Marsh Hawk, and my new boat,Yankee...
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| Marsh Hawk anchored, Blue Hill |
Update: July 2009
I know I said that crouching under a boom tent was unappealing, but reading about
dinghy cruising, especially articles by Jim Michalak, John Welsford and Matt Layden; as well as books by Charles
Stock, John Glasspool and Frank Dye, had given me the bug. Also, the Catalina was not ready to go, and I wanted to cruise
this summer. So, I took the Marsh Hawk.
This was the cruise, in short:
Wed 1 July: Belfast Harbor to Cradle Cove, Seven Hundred Acre Island.
Thu
2 July: Cradle Cove to Camden, then Rockland.
Fri 3 July: Rockland to Carver Cove,Vinalhaven Island
via Fox Island
Thorofare.
Sat 4 July: Carver Cove to Northhaven, then to Bass Harbor, Mt. Desert Island
via Deer Island Thorofare
and Casco Passage.
Sun 5 July: Bass Harbor to Somesville, Head of Somes Sound, then Northeast Harbor.
Mon 6
July: Northeast Harbor to Blue Hill Harbor.
Tue 7 July: Blue Hill Harbor to Bucks Harbor
via Eggemoggin Reach.
Wed
8 July: Bucks Harbor to Belfast Harbor.
There was rain, fog and wind, one memorable storm, clear days, calms
and big seas. There were boats of all kinds cruising these waters, birds, marine mammals and a few insects. The scenery
was so beautiful that I will have to leave it to some poet to describe it, but I will say that coming out of the fog off Stonington
topped about anything else I've seen in all the years I've been sailing.
The boom tent, as it turned out, was perfectly comfortable, and kept
me and my bedding dry one night when it rained as hard as it ever rains. I cooked almost all my meals aboard. A jib downhaul
and a good topping lift which I had installed last year both paid dividends on this cruise and a bunji chord I rigged for
the tiller proved invaluable.
The one thing I would like to add for the next cruise would be either a storm jib,
or a set of reef points for the jib I have.
The trip was made with no engine of course, and with no electronics or VHF
radio. I was getting ready to bring a hand-held GPS that a friend had given me, thinking it might be handy in a
fog; but when I turned it on, it did what I had always suspected it might do when I needed it most: went around and around
"aquiring satelites" and never aquired any. So, I left it home. All navigation was done by compass, chart and lead; and when
the wind died, I rowed.
I measured it out when I got home; the whole trip start to finish
was about 150 miles.
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