Sail Pandora

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We have now moved Pandora to Narragansett Bay for the month of July. Our home port will be Wickford, a town that we would dearly love to move to eventually. Our good friend Eric Collins, with his brother Chris, runs a wonderful old time marina called Pleasant Street Wharf, a place that looks much like it did 50 years ago. Their website is in keeping with it’s laid back nature and is unpretentious as they are. Where else will you see cookouts every weekend where the owner is there drinking beer with the rest of the gang. And, if that’s not enough Eric has a beer tap in it’s own fridge (kegerator?) in the back of the shop so he, and his friends, will never be without a cold one. Eric’s wife Sandy is a real estate agent so perhaps she will sell us a house one day.

We will be making weekend trips from Wickford through July until we move Pandora to Maine in early August.

On the 4th we went out on Eric and Chris’s 40′ lobster boat to watch the fireworks. There was a wonderfully eclectic mix of folks on board including a tie died shirt clad bagpiper. That’s not something that you see every day. What a great time we had.

We also went to Jamestown, right across from Newport but a lot less busy. We picked up a mooring in Dutch Harbor about a 3/4 mile walk on the other side of the island from town. The harbor in Jamestown is fairly open to the east and the boat traffic kicks up a chop that makes the boats bob at their moorings and on the dock. Never the less, there are a number of very nice boats on the waterfront. Two that really stand out are a small coastal cruiser that looks like it would be right at home on the Inter Coastal waterway headed to Florida for the winter. The real winner ihowever is this dark blue beauty. Who needs a mirror when you have the hull of this one to gaze into? What a stunner. It was built in Germany in the 40s. I wonder what sorts of stories it could tell?

Not all the boats in Jamestown are big and shiny. This massive wooden catboat Kathleen was built a few years ago by Beetle Boats and is ably sailed by her owner. Check out pictures of the build at their site. Last I heard, the boat didn’t even have an engine. Well her sail is big enough to get her home in even the lightest breezes. It makes me wonder what he does when the wind really pipes up. Scary to think about.

A few visitors aboard Pandora in Wickford. It was funny but this sparrow came back time and again over the weekend and made quite a racket. I wonder what he/she was looking for.

On the other hand, our cocker spaniel Riptide knows exactly what he wants from us. It’s a good nap and many runs ashore between meals. Not a bad life and what a great guy he is.

Today I am writing this from Potter’s Cove across from Bristol where I spent last night with my friend Bryce. He sprung for a great load of lobsters, steamers, corn on the cob and massively large shrimp last night for dinner aboard. What a feast. hToday we are going to head 10 miles up the bay to Newport for a very different experience ashore. More to come on that.

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We have spent the last two days at Watch Hill RI, located at the very eastern most point of Long Island Sound. From here we will probably head for Block Island. Our visit here allowed us to participate in a rendezvous with some friends from the Corinthians for a cocktail party at the Watch Hill Yacht Club. The club is located at he head of the harbor and commands a great view of the goings on as boats come and go from Watch Hill. The town is tucked along the water on the side of a hill. It’s very scenic and looks like a throwback to years ago. Here’s a shot of town and the yacht club. It’s really a pretty town.

We went for a walk on the beach and watched the waves crashing on the shore. It wasn’t a bright and sunny day but at least it wasn’t raining. As the waves ran up and down the beach they left wonderful patterns in the seaweed. These shots remind me of my son Christopher who loves taking pictures of detailed patterns in nature.

Aphrodite is an amazing old commuter yacht that was rebuilt in Brooklyn Maine a few years ago. Brenda and I saw it in the shop when we visited there. She is now ported out of Watch Hill and is clearly the bell of the harbor. I can’t even imagine what this restoration cost. She is amazing at 80′ of gleaming bronze and flawless varnish and paint. Click on Aphrodite and see some information about this remarkable boat. She has hosted Franklin Roosevelt, Spencer Tracey and Katherine Hepburn just to name a few. A real treasure.

>On Friday afternoon we visited the Wooden Boat Show held at Mystic Seaport. It’s been years since we have gone to this show in spite of my being a subscriber to the magazine, Wooden Boat for nearly 30 years. There should be a slideshow of the event on their site soon, I would think.

The show brings together wooden boat entusiasts from all over including private owners as well as vendors. The number of wonderful old and new wooden boats made it tough to say what I liked best. However, there were two large yachts in particular that are worth mentioning. Enticer is a vintage Trumpy yacht from the 30s that’s privately owned and also available for charter. The link above is a convenient way for you to arrange a charter for yourself. At only $14,000 per week plus, plus it’s a bargin for these trying economic times.

Interestingly, Enticer’s home port used to be Dolphin Cove in Stamford where Brenda’s parent’s Jack and Mary lived. It’s a small world.

The master suite on Enticer. Yes, a bit nicer than on Pandora.

A proper galley. Yes? I want one of these.

l loved this gadget. Well, it’s actually more than your run of the mill gadget as it’s a screw maker. The company exibiting had this machine making screws all day long. They said that they have something like 40 machines doing this all day long at their factory. The machine was a marvel as it picked up screw blanks, put them in a mandril and cut the threads. After that an arm picked the screw up and dropped it in a bin only to begin the process all over again. What a wonderful machine to watch. The machine was about 100 years old and a sight to behold. It’s hard to believe that someone can make a living selling fastenings made in the US these days. They are Goulet Specialties and are located right in CT. Unfortunately, they don’t have a photo of their machines running on their website.

Here’s a shot of another wonderful yacht that we were able to board at the show. Canim was open for inspection. Perhaps we will charter her one day. Not… Interested? Check her out at the Canim site. Don’t delay as prime weeks are going fast. So many boats to choose from. So little time…and money. Bummer about that. Besides, she only has three sleeping cabins. Totally unacceptable!!!

After leaving Mystic we headed over to Watch Hill, RI for a Corinthians rendesvous and cocktail party at the Watch Hill Yacht Club. It’s nice to have friends with connections. Today Brenda and I are planning to go for a walk on the ocean side of Napatree Point where Long Island Sound connects with Block Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean. We may head over to Block Island on Monday or perhaps somewhere else. We will have to see what the weather holds. For sure it will include a bit of rain as it has for every other day for the last month. Well, you know what they say… a bad day on the water beats a good day at work.

>Last weekend my son Rob spent some time on Pandora with two friends. We headed out in spite of a miserable weather forecast. It was really not looking too good with a better than 50% chance of rain each day. And it was raining cats and dogs as we drove into Mystic. However, as this trip involved one of my doc friends, Joe, flying in from Pittsburgh and the threat of having to reschedule for late September we took a chance and forged ahead.

The plan was to meet in Mystic CT on Thursday night after work. However, the forecast was for 100% rain followed by a 50% chance for the next few days. Yes, it was just pouring when we arrived in the early evening. As it was just too wet to get on board Pandora without getting soaked we opted for rooms at the lovely Day’s Inn Mystic. Actually, it was actually very nice and not expensive at all.

Joe and his son Luke arrived late due to delayed fights and trains but we all made it and were ready for our weekend out on the water.

I wanted to head over to Matituck Long Island and some winery visits but the idea of doing this in the rain just didn’t appeal. Instead we opted to head from Mystic to the CT River and up to Selden Creek, one of my son Rob’s favorite places anywhere. Rob had grown up visiting this place and he wanted to go in Pandora.

When I think about a 50% chance of rain I tend to think that it’s only about half likely to rain and even more likely, half no rain. Well, as luck would have it, at 10am on Friday morning the rain began to stop and we headed out to board Pandora. The rain actually held off and conveniently only came down at night. No problem there.

A short while later we headed down the river and out toward the western end of Fisher’s Island. In spite of (or more likely because of) a forecast of SE winds about 10-15kts, we entered the Sound against West winds of the same speed. Why is it that the weather guys are always wrong? This meant a beat against a 2kt tide and a headwind. Well, it was only about 15-18 miles to the River mouth, we were on. What a great sail it was.

Now, here’s something that you don’t see every day. A nuclear sub leaving New London. Wish we were closer. I’ll bet that they wouldn’t have felt the same way.

We reached the mouth of the river just as the tide was turning to give us a nudge up the river to Selden Creek.

About 8 miles up the river, Selden Creek is so narrow you can’t believe that the water is deep enough for a boat on the scale of Pandora. I kid you not when I say that the total width isn’t much more than 75-100′ from bank to bank. Fortunately, it’s quite deep with about 10′ of water all the way so after a three point turn going bank to bank, we set the hook.

The only way to anchor there is to set the main anchor off the bow and back toward a cliff on the shore that has a convenient ring cemented into the face. This way you can tuck along the bank and yet still be in water deep enough to stay out of trouble. Here’s a few great shots of where we were. What a great place.

All snug with an anchor and stern line tied to the cliff.

Now, here’s something that you don’t see every day, a mast in the trees. And yes, the trees were really that close.

Imagine this view of the marsh after dark. The entire surface carpeted with thousands (millions?) of lightning bugs. It was just amazing. We ate dinner in the cockpit and watched the scene unfold as it became dark. It was easily the most magical scene I had ever seen. Bummer that I couldn’t get a shot of it.

The view early the next morning without a breath of a breeze. Just amazing. Hard to believe that we were so close to salt water.

The forecast for Sunday included Gale Warnings so we headed back to Mystic to the mooring and a final dinner of local lobster.

In spite of the weather forecast we only saw rain in the evenings so I guess that the glass was indeed half full.

Brenda and I plan on boarding Pandora again later this week for a week of vacation over the 4th of July. We expect to take in the Wooden Boat Show at Mystic Seaport, a Corinthians rendezvous at Watch Hill and then we will be off to Block Island, Newport and ultimately to Wickford Rhode Island.

More to come and I can’t wait. The weather seems to be improving with a promising forecast for the weekend.

Wish us luck.

>My younger son Chris and his friend and fellow physicist Mohan from U Rochester joined me for the weekend on Pandora. We rendezvoused in Mystic on Friday evening and had dinner at Mystic Pizza, made famous the the movie of the same name starring Julia Roberts. It’s certainly the only pizza joint in the country showing that movie in continuous loops 20 hours a day. I believe that was the role that launched Julia Roberts career. Chris, now living in NYC, the pizza capital of the universe, declared the pizza substandard but OK. It was made more palatable by the hot fudge sunday that soon followed.

Most lighthouses that we visit are very informally operated but in true New York State Historic Park Service fashion, they had a ticket booth, gift store and a large staff made up of dedicated middle age guides with wireless headsets and uniforms. The staff had everything a National Historic Landmark could want except perhaps knowledge of the site beyond what they got from the site informational flier. I was amused, while at the top of the light to hear one women’s question of “where did the light house keeper sleep” answered by a somewhat perplexed guide “I guess that he slept on the floor here”, pointing to the landing at the top of the stairs. She went on to explain that the keeper’s home was down the stairs and down the road a bit. Certainly he didn’t walk the 100 yards from his home to the light multiple times a day. She also, in a completely authoritative voice stated that the “light was very efficient and didn’t even need electricity to be seen”. A fact not hard to imagine as the light was commissioned in the 1700s, a long time prior to the advent of electricity.

The view from the top of the tower is really something and given the fact that the site itself is on the top of a very high bluff, you can easily see Block Island and CT. Unfortunately, for safety reasons, you can only peek out on the balcony but it’s great none the less.

from the old light unit as it seems that the Frenchman Fresnel did some important work in optics back in the 1700s. This lens unit was a very impressive massive unit of bronze and glass. A true work of art and it must of have weighed a ton as it was over 6′ in diameter. The trip up to the top is not for the claustrophobic.

Another famous visitor to the area was Teddy Roosevelt who’s Rough Riders came to the area following the Spanish American War to be quarantined due to yellow fever and malaria. I guess that’s why there are unexploded bombs in the woods, something that is clearly posted in signs all over the place once you are off the main road. The message is clear and not something that you see every day. Chris and Mohan were terrified.

>While I am between cruises on Pandora I follow a number of sailing blogs and also listen to a terrific podcast from Martinique.

Speaking of Pandora, I am looking forward to next weekend when my younger son Chris and a college friend will join me for a weekend out of Mystic, where Pandora is now. The plan is to head out to Block Island for the weekend. I can’t wait!!

Two world class sailors, Steve and Linda Dashew are prolific writers, designers who have sailed all over the world. They have since traded in their sailboat and are cruising on a 90′ powerboat, the latest in their long line of fast, narrow energy efficient yachts. Their current boat “Wind Horse” is a 90′ very narrow, easily driven aluminum yacht that they are traveling the world on. They keep a regular blog and their most recent posting on June 2nd has them in Norway. Their blog has some really wonderful photos and some great tips on ocean cruising. Check them out at http://setsail.com/category/dashew-blog/ . For some really great photos of Wind Horse, check this out. http://dashewoffshore.com/fpb_first.asp What a boat.

What a terrific looking yacht Windhorse is…

Susan and Tom Maddigan have been cruising between New England and the Bahamas for several years and while they don’t post very often, they do have quite a bit of activity from their time on Brilliant. Check them out at http://www.sailbrilliant.blogspot.com/

Tom and Susan have covered a lot of miles with Brilliant. The are on their way north now.

Listing to podcasts is a relatively new activity for me but I absolutely love Yacht Blast which is a weekly radio show from a station in Martinique in the Caribbean. What a great thing to listen to while thinking of warmer climes. The host Gary Brown covers a great many topics including local sailing news and major events and races around the world. Great fun. You can go to I-tunes or to this link. http://www.yachtblast.com/#/podcasts/4526520265 Gary posts each Monday and I have subscribed by doing to I-tunes and it automatically loads onto my I-pod each week.

I am always on the lookout for fun sailing podcasts to listen to so please let me know of any that you like.

>We covered a decent amount of ground on our first week out on Easter Long Island. Since my last posting the weather improved as we headed from Greenport to Essex on the Connecticut River. That evening in Essex we had a great dinner as guests of our fellow Corinthians Rodney and Genie Devine. Rodney has crewed for me a number of times and is always a pleasure to have on board. Essex Yacht club is a very friendly place, quite a contrast to the clubs in Sag Harbor. This is a shot of the mooring field outside of the club, which is right down town Essex from our boat in the anchorage. Yes, it’s really this quaint.

While our trip over from Greenport began with a downpour, it ended up with a run some 10 miles past Essex in a beautiful afternoon cruise up to Haddam and the Goodspeed Opera House. Along the way we also passed Gillette Castle, the home of an excentric actor who played Sherlock Holmes back at the turn of the last century.

Here’s the Goodspeed Opera House and Gillette’s Castle.

There’s also a small airport at Goodspeed Landing and we were treated to a flyover and touch and go landing by a great little pontoon ultralight. Watching him weave down the river just 50ft off the water was a sight to behold. That would really be fun to do sometime. There are lots of really quaint homes along the river and it’s fun to just enjoy as we motor by.

On Saturday morning we motored down the CT River again and headed East to Mystic, catching a great SW breeze and an ebbing tide. We covered the distance in really great time going some 7+ knots most of the way. We sailed right up the river to pick up my friend Keith’s mooring right near the swing bridge. Keith and Rose own a SAGA 43 like Pandora and they travel South each winter to spend a few months in the Bahamas. Since they won’t be back until the end of June they agreed that we could use their mooring.

After a really great sail it was time for payback when I started looking for Keith’s mooring which had sunk over the winter when the stick he put in place instead of the float sunk. I thought that I was all prepared with a grapple hook to find it but it turned out to be a much more difficult project than I had envisioned. I did find three other moorings fairly quickly it took many hours of dragging back and forth, often in the entirely wrong place it turned out, until I finally found it. Keith was very patient with me on the phone as I called him many times for encouragement and direction finding. I am sure that he would have found it rather quickly. Here’s a shot of me untangling the lines and getting it ready to use.

What a mess.

Anyway, all’s well that ends well and we had a great morning and afternoon in Mystic on Sunday prior to catching Amtrak to Bridgeport late afternoon.

Now Pandora is safely on her mooring for two weeks until I head back up to spend a weekend with my son Christoper and one of his friends. Hopefully the weather will cooperate so we can make a weekend visit to Block Island.

Things are a bit unsettled at work these days who knows what the rest of the summer will hold.

That’s all for now.

>We had our first week of the season on Pandora beginning last Friday when we went from Norwalk Yacht Club out to Mattituck LI. We have visited this small harbor a number of times over the years and decided that we would make this our first stop of the summer. The channel is a long way in and winds past homes, boat yards and osprey nests. It’s very pretty.

While we were there the weather was great. We even walked out of town about 2 miles to visit a vineyard. Shinn Vineyards a great little vineyard on the North Fork of Long Island. We took a tour given by Barbara Shinn who is really passionate about her farm which she keeps in a way that goes way beyond organic. Her current push is to get approval for a large wind generator on the property that will power the vineyard and tasting room. What a great place. Check out this view.

After that we went further out and spent a few days in Sag Harbor. What a contrast with all the big yachts. I counted a dozen over 100′. What recession? SAG isn’t very friendly if you don’t have $$$ to through around. Moorings are charged by the foot at $2/ft, something that we have not run into anywhere else. They are doing an excellent job of keeping their moorings open and unocupied with that policy. Odd as you’d think that they would want to attract more dollars from the “little people” too.

Since leaving SAG on Tuesday we have seen nothing but rain and cool weather. It’s Friday morning and we have been on the dock in Greenport checking out the town. It’s really a very nice town with lots of historic homes. Very nice. We even found a marina that would give us a free (almost) spot to tie up for two days. There wasn’t another boat around due to the weather and the fact that it’s still early in the season.

Very different than SAG Harbor, I would say.

The main street in town isn’t exactly hopping. We were told that Memorial Day Weekend was very busy. You can’t tell here. Also, Claudio seems to own much of the town businesses and is said to be the oldest family owned restaurant in the US. We ate there the first night because of the really cheap doc space. It was the least that we could do.

Hard to imagine a marina with only one boat. Yes, it was just us.

Well, have to sign off now as we are headed over to the CT River for a visit with some friends tonight in Essex.

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I have not been keeping up with my blog for many months but it’s been a busy winter working on Pandora. I put an automatic Espar cabin heater on the boat, upgraded the jib travler, modfied the companionway steps and completely removed and re-varnished the cabin sole. I did lots of other things that are too small to mention but here are the larger items.

Here’s the cabin sole all laid out in the cockpit prior to the final installation. Yes, that’s 26 individual pieces. I used an interesting product called “Ultimate Sole” to finish it and it’s supposed to be non-skid even though it’s shiny. So far, so good.

Hee is the finished sole in place! I like it.

Here’s the new traveler. The old one came out to the side of the cabin and didn’t provide a good sheeting angle so the new one goes out an additional 16″ or so on each side. The better angle with the wider set makes for better performance. I had to get new brackets made to provide support for the extra overhang but they fit perfectly. I got this idea from my friend Keith and confirmed it with the boat’s designer, Bob Perry. It does make a big difference. The boat’s faster and heels less.
This is a closeup of the new brackets. Really nice work by Klako Marine in Canada.

I also added wedges in the companionway steps so that it would be easier to enter the cabin when the boat is heeled. This gives us a “level” surface to stand on when the boat is on an angle. Very nice to have and gives much better footing.

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It’s been a while since I last posted and Pandora has covered quite a bit of ground since then. Following the weekend in Block Island, Pandora returned to Shelter Island for a Corinthians rendezvous, went to New Bedford for a few weeks, over to Martha’s Vineyard with visits to both Edgartown and Oak Bluffs as well as Newport, Wickford and East Greenwich RI. For the last few weeks she has been in Wickford where she will now be until late this month. As I write this we are on a mooring in Potter’s Cove on the eastern side of Prudence Island, Narraganset Bay. The island is located a bit South of Bristol and Providence but quite far up the bay.

The last month has been very busy for us in getting Pandora ready for the upcoming race to Maine which leaves from Stonington CT on Sunday, July 27th. Ken Appelton, my “crew boss” has done a tremendous amount to help keep things moving forward. He has, perhaps more than anyone else, kept me focused on all of the items that need to be done to be sure that we are well prepared for our offshore run and in compliance with all the regulations. Last week I placed an order with Landfall Navigation including a whole variety of safety equipment to be sure that we have whatever we need in the event of a problem on the race. The list includes various strobe lights, both for the boat and for individual users (it’s hard to find someone if they fall overboard after dark and a bright strobe makes it much easier), dental repair kit (I’d hate to break a tooth 150 miles from shore), fire blanket to put out galley fires, various weatherproof flashlights, emergency VHF antennas and just a blur of other products that the race safety inspector would be absolutely certain that I can’t live without. Well, being on a boat out with knowone around to help does suggest that we should have whatever we might need to fix a problem with the boat or crew.

Ken and I spent a few day on board with another friend a few weeks ago and went through the boat to get as many of the safety issues worked out as possible. One example is that every thru-hull (where a hose goes out through the bottom of the boat) needs to have a softwood plug secured with a lanyard that can be hammered into the hole if there is a failure in the hose. This is just one of a staggering number of details. The storm sails, for use in winds over 40kts were also set to be sure that they would fit and that the sheet leads ran clear. We also ran up the spinnaker, the big colorful sail designed to catch the wind when we are running down wind, to make sure that we understood how to launch and retrieve it quickly.

As I mentioned, we have been keeping Pandora in Wickford RI where we have some good friends. This is a town where we would love to live some day. The town has a very quaint downtown area with lots of really nice historic homes and a somewhat “artsy” look to it. The harbor is well protected and convenient to Block Island Sound which is just a few miles up the bay toward Newport.

As I mentioned, we are in Potter’s Cove now and the last time we were here was nearly 30 years ago in TAO, our first boat. The boat was a 20′ Cape Cod catboat, and a lot smaller (ask Brenda) and much, much rougher (you can ask Brenda about that too). No running water on that boat and that was the least of it. They say that you should not do long distance cruising on a boat that is shorter than your age. Well, that might not be completely realistic as given my growing years but there is some wisdom in it.

Here is a shot off of the plotter of the cove as well as the larger bay so you can see where it is relative to Block Island Sound which is at the top of the larger scale shot.

The last time we were here I don’t recall there being any moorings. Well, there are lots of them now and boats galore. There are just mobs of boats including a number of large groups of powerboats all rafted together. It seems that powerboats are, more than ever, congregating in local harbors near to their marinas so that they don’t have to burn much of that precious fuel to get there. At $5/gal it isn’t hard to run up quite a bill at the filling station from a few hours on the water. Pandora only burns about 1 gal per hour but that still translates into about 6 miles per gallon at cruising speed. Even a small powerboat can burn 30-40 gal per hour, a staggering amount of fuel.

When we were here so many years ago on TAO we were sitting in the cockpit having an evening cocktail, a gin an tonic if I recall while dinner cooked on the grill. I should note that the grill was one of those $15 cheap hibachi grills that are designed to be used a few times and tossed out. Well, I had rigged a little wooden bracket to hang out over the transom and had placed our dinner (two chicken legs with thigh attached) on the hot grill to cook. Now, keep in mind that we didn’t have a fridge on the boat like we do now so our storage for food was very, very limited. We kept our food, water and our precious ice in that little cooler and there wasn’t much room for much beyond that one dinner. Anyway, out of the blue, a particularly aggressive sea gull swooped down and snagged one of our two, now piping hot, chicken legs right off the grill. Now remember that I said that the leg and thigh were attached and as the gull gulped half of our dinner down his neck assumed the shape of the leg and thigh. As we sat there in utter amazement, we watched him fly away with his neck bent about 35 degrees as he forced down his dinner in one gulp.

This visit, nearly 30 years later, was very different but a lot less peaceful. However, even with all the other boats around us we were able to enjoy a really beautiful sunset.

Brenda always says that it “blows a gale” in Narraganset Bay and today’s no exception. With south winds gusting over 20kts it will be a spirited run back to Wickford this afternoon.

The next time that we will be back on Pandora will be a few days prior to the race so there will be plenty to do as we make last minute adjustments to the boat. While there will be plenty of gear on board for the race, the plan is to remove as much as we can to lighten the load. All of the gear that we remove will go into two cars for to be driven up to Maine and then put back on the boat after the race.