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It’s Saturday morning and I can’t stop thinking about our sail yesterday aboard Marie.  We were competing against other superyachts in the Newport Bucket Regatta.  And, what a day it was. The wind was just enough to be interesting and yet not too much to have things get hairy.  Well, to be true, I expect that the 20+ crew members on hand would have made about anything look easy.   I took loads of photos and a few great videos which I will share in the coming days. For now, I’ll just put up a few choice pieces.  This is a shot of Marie making her way as we left the dock.  With both stern and bow thrusters, she can be maneuvered sideways into impossibly small areas.  Well small by Marie standards at least.  Marie is berthed, for the series, in Newport Shipyard, home of most of the superyachts visiting Newport.    Marie was the biggest of the lot at 181′.    The owner, Ed, likes to make a statement with his antique cannons as we leave port.  Actually, he likes to make a statement of some kind with them at most any opportunity.  However, he’s very considerate of guests who are issued earplugs and warned of the impending “salute”.    We did just that as Marie left her berth for the races.   The “charges” for the cannon are made up specially for these cannons as they are antiques and not your normal type that shoot blank shotgun shells.  What a BOOM!There are plenty of crew hired to run the boat with 8 on board full time and perhaps 20 more brought in for the races.  It’s quite a production and amazingly well choreographed.   And, it has to be as they are racing against other massive yachts.  A collision wouldn’t go over well.  Here’s Meteor crossing Marie’s bow.  Meteor is about 160′ long and a real icon.  Happily, she’s not nearly as fast as Marie. The racing crew kept the stewards pretty busy in the galley making lunches and snacks.  Between sail changes, and there were plenty to keep the crew busy, food was passed up on deck and served to the crew.  Stewards, Georgia, Christen and Jen were everywhere making sure that everyone was well fed.   It was an amazing production.  Here are Georgia and Christen delivering snacks on the foredeck ,between sail changes,as we blasted along at 11kts.  They make it all look so easy.  Filet of beef sandwiches on fresh baguettes anyone?   And save room for the gooey brownies that will come after lunch for desert. Speaking of sail changes, Marie has a spinnaker that’s 16,000 sq ft.  It’s massive.  To see them jibe the chute is amazing.  On Friday evening we were treated to a “yacht hop” meaning that we could go, or hop from boat to boat and be served drinks and food.  EVERYTHING about super yachts is competitive, especially the chefs.  And compete they did.   What great fun.   The food was fab.  We were treated to lobster rolls, lobster in the shell and shrimp that could easily pass as little lobster tails.  One yacht had this amazing raw bar.  Mmm…As twilight progressed the setting was magical.  And everyone enjoyed walking the docks saying “Did you try the amazing pulled pork?  Or the fab sushi on Marie?”   Yes, yes and yes. Plenty of that an more. What a fabulous day it was.  I can’t wait for day two, and three… I hope it never ends.  And yes, it does seem like a dream in a good way, a very good way.

It’s Friday morning early and today Brenda and I head to Newport, in a car, not by boat, to sail aboard the sailing yacht Marie in the “Newport Bucket Regatta”  today, Saturday and Sunday.  You may recall the post that I did over a year ago that lead to our visiting Over Yonder Cay in the Bahamas last winter.  Ok, ok, you didn’t see that post, or can’t recall any others for that matter.

Well, over a year ago I was reading an article in a magazine that I get here at home and was intrigued by a guy, Ed Bosarge, who was profiled.   The article mentioned his island, yes “his” island, in the Bahamas, Over Yonder Cay as well a HUGE sailing yacht Marie.

I had to learn more so I did a bit of research (Yes, that means Google searches) and wrote this post.   That was back in June of 2013.   It seems that Ed, I hope that I can call him Ed since we are sailing with him, read the post and must have liked what he saw.

Fast forward to February of last winter and I got a comment on this blog from someone writing that they were contacting me on behalf of the owner of Over Yonder Cay and that we were being invited to visit the island and would we be interested.   Hmm… Visit a private island that rents for $75,000 a day…. Tough call…  Well, OK, we could fit it in, and actually, we were only a few hours sail away.

OF COURSE!.  We visited and it was amazing.  You can read about our visit to the island in this post.  Quite a place.

So, fast forward till a few weeks ago and I get an e-mail from Ed, the owner of Marie, inviting us to sail for three days aboard Marie in Newport.   Well, the answer of YES didn’t take long to come out.

The Bucket regattas take place in Newport and also in St Barts and these regattas are for “super yachts”.    In this case, “super” has to do with “huge”.  I can’t wait to do a post about this little outing and as I woke up early today I just had to take a few minutes to put some thoughts down.

I think that it’s safe to say that the owners of the yachts that will compete have “buckets” that are pretty full.  Well, me?  I feel like my bucket is pretty full too having been invited aboard the Yacht Marie.

Here’s a slide show of last year’s race and participants.Wish us luck, win, loose or draw, it’s going to be quite a spectacle.

 

 

 

 

 

I’s Monday here in Newport and we are enjoying a peaceful morning aboard Pandora.  The harbor is already busy with the constant coming and going of small craft as they ply the harbor buzzing from here to there.  The ever present harbor patrol just passed looking official with his black and aluminum inflatable.   With this many boats I expect that absent the harbormaster things would be pretty chaotic.  Today he’s towing a large log around behind his boat.  Better to get it out of the water than to be hit by some unsuspecting powerboat.  Yesterday he and one of his other “official” friends came to the rescue of two boats that had tangled their anchors near us, a common theme in this busy harbor. 

Brenda and I had out own “patrol” last evening as we took a “cocktail cruise” on our way to dinner at a nice little Italian spot downtown. For nearly an hour we slowly “putted” around enjoying the sights, and plenty of sights there were.

There is a marina in the harbor that caters to the “superyachts” and there are plenty in attendance.  To us it looked like business is very good as there wasn’t a single open slip in the place.  And, there were plenty to compete for the title of “my yacht is bigger and more opulent than yours”.   This one actually had a sign on it with the details.  She’s 90’ long and was just launched in 2013.  How about that for a varnish job?This gives a good feel for how massive these yachts are.  Plenty of room for “toys” inside of the stern of this baby.If you are into speed and multi-hulls, this should tickle your fancy.  Hard to say how long she is but the mast is tall enough to trigger a nose bleed.  I’ll bet she rips along.This view gives a feel for the variety.  How about this for a “clipper bow”?  And a great contrast to the motor yachts beside her.I was particularly struck by the contrast between this traditional sailing yacht on a mooring out in the harbor and her “mate” a ultra-modern go-fast racer.  It’s not uncommon to see two yachts rafted together.  Often it’s a huge motoryacht and a racing sailboat.  “heavens Roy, you can’t expect me to sleep aboard that little sailboat.  She can’t be an inch over  50’.  Reeaally!!!”  It seems that there is a trend among the “uberwealthy” to have multiple yachts.  But of course, Buffy wouldn’t have it any other way.Newport is also the home of IYRS, the International Yacht Restoration School.  IYRS takes students who want to learn yacht restoration and teaches them the skills to work on old classics.  It’s a terrific program and has turned out some great graduates that now work on some of the most iconic yachts.  In particular, Coronet, the last surviving yachts from the Victorian era is undergoing restoration.  She is being bankrolled by a wealthy benefactor who is footing the bill on this massive undertaking.  Coronet is over 100 years old and has been around the world several times.  She is 130’ long and just massive. This photo is of a poster depicting her in all her glory.  Quite a sight.Her interior was painstakingly removed years ago when she arrived here and is in storage.    The plan is to restore the hull and then put all the interior pieces back in place.  It is a massively expensive undertaking and it’s hard to imagine how one person can fund such a restoration.   It will be years until she is back in the water. 

Look at the massive timbers.  They are about 10” each. The stern is lovely and a LOT bigger than it looks here. For those with pockets that, you might say are “shallower”, IYRS also restores Beetle Cats, the iconic catboats loved by many.   They always have a few for sale.  The deal is that you can donate your old boat and then buy it back after it’s restored by the students.   They look great.They even have a good supply of boats that have been donated and are ready for a willing buyer to foot the cash for a rebuild.  A very appealing concept, in my book.  Hmm… pick one.  It’s just sooooo hard to choose…Anyway, thinking about wooden boats isn’t getting our day underway.  Perhaps we’ll take a tour of an equally unattainable restored mansion.     As the NY Lottery once said, “all you need is a dollar and a dream”.   Perhaps a few dozen million lottery tickets is more like it.

Well, I’ll just sail into the sunset on my little Pandora.  Yes, I’ll dream about that instead.

It’s Sunday morning and we are anchored in Newport harbor where we will be for the next few days.  Yesterday we motored down from Bristol into a light SW breeze, an easy run of about 10 miles.   It was remarkable to see how many boats were out on a perfect Saturday afternoon for a sail. I would guess that there were literally hundreds of white sails dotting the water.  And, the boats that weren’t out on the bay were motoring around the harbor.  What a busy place. However, in spite of the crowded harbor, we were able to find a place to drop the hook for the night. 

Along the way we were passed by the sole remaining member of the NY 50 class, Spartan, built by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, a boat builder from Bristol that dominated the yachting scene from the mid 1800s through the 1930s.  Spartan, was rebuilt over several years in a no expense spared restoration.  I had seen her at the Wooden Boat Show at Mystic several years ago when she was fresh from her rebuild.  Yesterday she sailed by us with topsail flying.  Imagine a 70+ foot long daysailer.   Yes, she has some bunks down below but it’s not a big boat inside.  What a sight to see the huge sails billowing in the light wind. It was fitting that we should see Spartan as we left Bristol where we had been the prior day with the Essex Yacht Club cruise as we had visited the yard where she was built, the Herreshoff company closed in the 40s and now lives on as a museum dedicated to the many yachts that the yard turned out.  The museum has an impressive collection of boats built there.  In particular, they display the half models of nearly every design that the yard developed, some built and some just ideas of yachts he’d have liked to build.  Nat Herreshoff the dominant force at the yard for many years and a brilliant designer, was dubbed the “Wizard of Bristol” and was sought after by many yachtsmen of great wealth to have him design and build yachts for them.  The yard was a dominant force in the early America’s Cup yachts turning out many winners.

Nat’s designs were done first as half models which he carved out of wood and then they were measured  and the lines taken off so that a proper set of builder’s plans could be drawn and it was from these plans that the actual yachts were built.   The museum has a remarkable set of these half models on display.  There are a lot of them representing every yacht that the yard turned out throughout their rich history.  The walls were just covered by them. The tour was particularly interesting as we had an expert guiding us and giving us interesting anecdotes along the way.  They even did some work for the US government during the two world wars including the hulls design and construction of some flying boats.  In particular, the NC4 which was the first plane to fly across the Atlantic, albeit with stops for fuel along the way.  This is a particularly nice model of the design, if a bit blurry.And, it appears that the Navy did this short movie of the historic flight. I haven’t watched it though as I don’t want to burn up bandwidth.  I hope it’s good.

They also designed fast torpedo boats for the Navy including a design that is noted for being the first to launch a motorized torpedo at speed.

They have a remarkable collection of Herreshoff built boats on display, many of which are in perfect, like new, condition.It’s a wonderful museum worth visiting.   Check their site out. 

Now we will be in Newport for a few days prior to heading to Fisher’s Island for the wrap up event of the Essex Yacht Club cruise.

Today we will head ashore for a bit of exploring in Newport, a busy but fun place to visit.

Perhaps I should call it a “wrap”, put this post up, make some coffee and get on with my day.  Yes, a good idea and it’s a beautiful one at that.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s Friday morning and was a chilly 63 degrees in the cabin when I got up.  I mention this as I wasn’t expecting to be “chilly” as I had recently installed a new Espar diesel heater to replace the old one that had given up the ghost and the plan was to turn on the heater at such times and enjoy the warm air.  How simple…

However, it’s never as simple as it should be with boats and as is so often the case, and getting things right has turned out to be a long drawn out process.  First, getting the parts took FOREVER to order as the dealer was busy, it would seem, with “bigger fish”.  I wanted to order it from a location that was fairly close to home and chose a dealer in New Haven.  Anyway, it is sufficient to report that it has taken a few months go get all the parts in place and FINALLY get the unit installed.

However, getting the unit operational didn’t work out as well as I had hoped.  The mistake I made was to try and use the old wire harness from the old “mort” heater and just match up the individual wires on a junction board instead of snaking all the new wires through the bilge.  My brilliant idea was to avoid ripping up the floor a project that I have done one too many times and didn’t want to repeat.  How simple, I surmised, to just label the wires, color for color, and note that the “new” red with white stripe wire in the new harness matched with the “old” brown with green stripe wire.  Simple, right?  NOT!!!

Here’s what the new-to-old wiring looks like.  An impressive mix of new and old.  It looks tidy enough to work…Besides, the heater looks great all snug in it’s new home, working or not.  Speaking of snug, working under the cockpit is really tight. It’s like wriggling in a cave, and a very small one at that.Anyway, when I installed the unit, before leaving on our trip, I came up short on a single plug for the fuel pump and had to wait till I was here in Wickford RI for it to be finally delivered. You’d think that the dealer would have provided a plug to go with the pump as the harness didn’t come with one in the first place. I guess that’s asking too much.  So, yesterday the part finally arrived and I decided to spend a little time getting everything in order.   Mistake…

After a few hours, I had plugged everything in and the heater wouldn’t start.  I called the tech support folks in Canada multiple times and finally figured out that it was the little red wire, one of many wires, that wasn’t working right.  I won’t bore you with the details except to say that I ended ripped up the floor anyway, which took a few more hours;  the very thing I had hoped to avoid by using the old wires.   That was clearly not a good decision at all.

So, after blowing the day messing with everything, I finally gave up and decided that I would just wait till I was back home where I will just rip all the old wire out and put in the wire supplied with the unit; something that I should have done in the first place. I’ll bet that my brother Bill, who’s good with such things, wouldn’t have taken such a shortcut.  I’d like to say “live and learn” but I fear that the future will show that while I have “lived”, I likely didn’t “learn” and will make such stupid mistakes again and again…

So, no heat this morning, and that’s why I am mentioning this at all.  Besides, it’s August and it’s supposed to be HOT.  Where’s global warming when you need it?

As you can imagine, Brenda wasn’t too pleased with me frittering away a beautiful day yesterday but happily, she has forgiven me and, as they say, “today is another day”.

For the last few days we have been on a dock at Pleasant Street Wharf,  our favorite spot here in Wickford.  It’s a favorite as it’s home to our great friends Eric and Sandy, old time friends, with the emphasis on the “friends” as opposed to “old” from our catboating days.  Sappho, a catboat and our second boat, which we sold to Eric over 20 years ago, is still here and in great shape, perhaps better than when we sold her so long ago.  Pretty amazing.   We had a great dinner with Eric and Sandy the other night.  It was fun to reconnect.  We hope that they will visit us in CT.  

While it’s not Sappho, our old catboat, there are plenty of these little yachts here in Wickford. Here’s one that sailed by the other evening.  It’s easy to see how catboats remain so popular.We also visited with our friends Teri, Mike and their daughter Julie who now has two children.  It doesn’t seem like very many years ago that Brenda braided Julie’s hair in the cockpit of Sappho when we were out cruising together.  However, if the truth were told, that was way back in 1990, 24 .lyears ago.  Time sure flys and it was so sweet to see her with her two boys.

We also visited my cousin Pat and her husband Bob who just built an amazing home overlooking the bay nearby.  I think that their garage is nearly as big as our home.    What a spot.

So, here I am, sitting in Pandora’s cockpit typing away thinking about our years past aboard and somehow everyone has grown up.  As my mother likes to say, “how is it that you have gotten so old when I am still so young”.  Me?  I really don’t feel like I am in my “upper mid 50s”.

The view from Pandora’s cockpit is lovely. Life is good… And, we are here yet again in Wickford among friends.

Today we head up to Bristol for another day with our Essex YC friends.   Last night we had a fabulous dinner with the group at the Wickford YC.   I ate too much.  It was a seafood extravaganza, prepared by our own EYC chef Michael.  We had quite a group. 

While many came by boat, some arrived via the “Tabernacle Choir Bus” from Essex, owned by one of our members.  It seems that the “church bus” is actually a party bus in drag.  The “tabernacle choir” is completely fictitious, made up by our member in a jolly moment.  I don’t expect that he will be stopped by the “Constabulary“ any time soon.   How about this shot of the “sacred” spot framed by a rainbow.  Perhaps they do have someone looking over them.  

I guess Brenda and I do too.   What a great day here in Wickford.