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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.

>Brenda headed home on Wednesday night and my younger son Chris and his friend Dan joined me in Mystic to spend a few days on Pandora. On Thursday morning we headed out to Block Island off the coast of Rhode Island. Block is a great spot and while it feels like a world away, it’s just 15 miles from Watch Hill Passage at the most eastern end of Long Island Sound.

I have mentioned my solar panels in past postings and here’s a shot of them in action. I am getting up to 20amps mid day and nearly 10amps even in the early AM hours. This is terrific as it is allowing me to be much more liberal with my electrical consumption. I could probably leave the cooler on when I am away from the boat for a week but I am not willing to try that out quite yet.

We had a really great trip over on a beam reach in about 18kts of wind. Pandora raced along in moderate seas at 7.5 to 8+kts. With the tide pushing us along a bit faster, we made it in about 1.5hrs from Watch Hill Passage. By the time we got to Block it was blowing about 20 from the southwest but was still a really nice day. The guys and I rented bikes and rode all over the island and came back in time for dinner I have to say that I did OK for a guy of my relative maturity against a few 22+ year olds. Having said that I felt a bit of pain in the rear when I eased myself onto the bike seat again today.

Now, here’s something that you don’t see every day, a Llama and an Emu. And, to top it off, a sign that says “don’t feed the camels”. I guess that means that it’s OK to feed the Emu but what do they eat?

Today we biked out to the North Light which marks the most northern part of the island, while the rest of the island is fairly built up, this area is still quite wild and protected as a bird nesting place. And given the fact that we visited so early in the season gave us a first hand look at nesting gulls. I have never seen a baby gull and just assumed that they popped out fully grown or at least grew up from rats that turned into gulls when they got big, a sort of metamorphosis like a butterfly, if not quite so pleasant as the caterpillar to butterfly thing. It was quite amazing as there were gull nests everywhere including some places that were right on the path to the lighthouse which suggests that there hasn’t been much in the way of foot traffic lately.

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I have been coming to Block for nearly 30 years and have never been there so early in the
season as my visits usually are in July and August when things are really hopping. I was just stunned when we entered the New Harbor to see that there were less than 5 boats. It was just amazing to see a harbor where you usually have to standby with your dink to race toward a mooring when a boat leaves. With moorings first come, first served, that’s the only way to get one in the busy season. For those of you who have been there, this shot will surely strike you as abnormal and very vacant. While I normally anchor I decided to get a mooring close to shore given the Strong winds when we arrived yesterday. While it’s not yet busy it wasn’t too early for the harbor master to come and get his fee first thing on Friday morning. Our original plan was to head back on Sunday afternoon but with the weather forecast calling for rain and thunderstorms all day Saturday we decided to just head back to Mystic on Friday and catch a train on Saturday morning, rain or not. As much as I like the boat I am not inclined to spend a day on board in the rain if I can avoid it.

As I write this we are headed over toward Watch Hill Passage under power as the forecast of 10-15kts from the southwest has not materialized. The Sound is a glassy calm with just a hint of a breeze. The wind ultimately picked up and we had a great sail back to Mystic.

It’s now Saturday and it is indeed raining but we are headed back to Norwalk and our car via train.

Well, no time on Pandora for two weeks. Our next trip will be over to Shelter Island for a Corinthians rendezvous and on to New Bedford MA.

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It’s 6:30 am on Sunday and we are anchored in Mattituck which is a small harbor on the North Shore of Long Island about half way between Port Jefferson and Greenport. I didn’t know exactly what to expect when we got here last night around dusk as I had not been here in many years. Brenda and I were talking about it but couldn’t decide if I had been here just twice or three times. The harbor is over 40 miles from Norwalk, where we left from yesterday at 1:30 which was the limit of our range given the fact that we had left so late on Saturday.

Try as I might, I just couldn’t get done before noon with finalizing the solar panels. This was the big project over the winter and is designed to be the first step in getting Pandora ready for more serious cruising. I had to wait until after the rigger had finished working on the boat as they had to access the backstay which was all tangled up with the bimini which hold the panels. The installation is made up of four Kyocera 130 panels http://www.kyocerasolar.com/products/ksimodule.html should put out about 50-60kwh per day in this lattitude and over 100kwh in places that we could say are “a lot sunnier”. They are located on top of the bimini and look quite serious if I can say so myself.

Anyway, back to Mattituck. The harbor is about two miles down a narrow curving chanel (the depth alarm went off time and again as the depth came in under six feet) that leads to a small dredged pond with room for about 6-8 boats. While anchoring was a bit tough since the bottom was gooey and I wasn’t putting out enough scope, we finally got anchored and settled in for dinner.

I recall the first time that Brenda and I visited this harbor. It was over 25 years ago and we were on our first boat TAO, a 20′ Cape Cod Catboat. We came all the way here from Bridgeport where we kept the boat. That’s nearly as far as we came yesterday and that was on a boat that had a cruising speed of 4-5 knots under the best of conditions with a tiny 5hp one cylindar diesel. That’s in dramatic contrast to Pandora’s 7-8 knot speed under power or sail. On that trip so many years ago we were with our now long time friends Chris and Pat Blossom. Let me tell you, it was really cramped on TAO and we didn’t even have standing headroom. I know that we came out with the plan of visiting friends and did but can’t recall what the details of that were. Well, we came and went but it couldn’t have been as carefree as it was yesterday with Pandora.

The wind yesterday coming over from Norwalk was a reasonable 15kts with a few gusts to about 20kts from the northwest which allowed us to keep our speed up in the 7kt range for about half of the distance. However, in order to make the harbor by dusk we ended up motorsailing for the second half.

Today we hope to get ashore and look around a bit and will head around to Sag Harbor for the night. I have a friend John Kenlon from work who’s family has place there and we hope to meet up with him. We will see how the day goes.

12:00: We had a nice trip to shore and walked downtown to the village. It was very quaint and we purchased some cheese at a very “Hamptonesque” shop in town. While not nearly as flashy as the Hamptons, Mattatuck is certainly well monied with lots of really nice cars coming and going. Here’s a nice shot of Main street. When we came here the first time on TAO we saw what was surely the oddest museum that one could expect to see on the North Fork of Long Island, a tank museum. Not water tank, the Sherman kind. Unfortunately, now all that’s there is a garden center. So much for progress.

Well, it’s time for lunch and after that we will leave to head over to Sag Harbor.

>Well, I have been remiss in not posting since Pandora came out of the water in November. It’s been a very busy winter and it seems that I was up working on the boat most every weekend. I can’t even begin to list all that has been done to the boat but I have gotten a new genoa, main, storm trysail and storm jib. I also had a new propshaft put on and installed Spurs to keep lobster pot warps from fouling the prop. And, many subtle upgrades to make Pandora more comfortable and ready to go offshore.

This photo is of Pandora being launched a few weeks ago. The two folks to the left are my mom & dad who came down to watch the boat go in. I kept Pandora in Bridgeport CT, near where they now live, so that I was able to see them a lot over the Winter. It was a thrill to see them both come down. It’s tough for them to get around these days which made their presence all the better. Wow, they both look so small next to the lift.

Our plans for the Summer include moving around quite a bit. On Memorial Day weekend we will leave Norwalk Yacht Club where she is now and head out to Shelter Island in Eastern Long Island Sound. We will hang around for a few days and then I will drop Brenda in Mystic so that she can head home for a three day weaving workshop in New York. Christopher, my newly graduated (Yea!) 22 year old will join me for a run to Block Island on that Thursday. My oldest, Rob and his fiance Lauren will take the Block Island Ferry out to meet up with us. Keith Reynolds, a fellow SAGA 43 owner who winters in the Bahamas has offered for us to use his mooring in Mystic until he arrives in mid June.

We will also be using a friend’s mooring for a few weeks in New Bedford MA so that it will be easy to do a few weekends over to Martha’s Vineyard.

Brenda and I are also planning to visit Wickford RI and enjoy our friends there for a few weekends of sailing in Narraganset Bay.

That takes us up to late July when I will take Pandora back to CT and the Stonington Harbor Yacht Club to participate in the Stonington to Boothbay Harbor race that the Corinthians are sponsoring. Check out the site at http://www.stoningtontoboothbayharbor.com/ and see the list of boats that are entered.

The race is rated as a category #2 which means that we are going to be substantially on our own but within east Coast Guard and helicopter range if we get into trouble. We will have all sorts of safety equipment on board including a liferaft, EPIRB (emergency satellite transponder) and a crew of seven. The course for the race will take us East to Nantucket light which is about 60 miles SE of Nantucket and left up to Maine. It’s a long way with a 350nm course length.

Following our arrival in Maine we will participate in a cruise with the Corinthians for a second week.

After that we will come home for Rob’s wedding which takes place on August 23rd in CT. Very exciting!

Well, that’s not all as we will head back up to Maine for yet another two weeks on Pandora. At the end of the trip I will bring Pandora back to CT in mid September.

Lots of sailing this Summer.

>Well, the season is really over and Pandora will be hauled for the Winter on Tuesday morning at 8am in Bridgeport CT.

Yesterday I visited the Quantum sail loft in Norwalk CT and had TK (the sailmaker) take a close look at all of Pandora’s Sails. He had sailed with me in early November to take a look at their shape under way and we decided that the genoa and main were pretty bad. That’s not surprising because both the genoa and main are origional at 9 years old and near the end of their life. When sails get old they stretch out which means that they no longer have as good an aerodynamic shape. In simple terms this means that the boat heels over more because the air flow over the sail isn’t as clean. As a result, more heeling over and less going forward, a combination that’s not good for the crew. And, like many girls that I know, Brenda doesn’t like to heel at all. However, the shape of the working jib isn’t quite as obvious and may still be in reasonable shape and last a few more years. The previous owner had said that it was only 4 years old.

Anyway, it’s interesting to see just how big these sails looked in the loft.

The largest is the genoa which weighed in at a hefty 658 square feet. In fact, it’s a 154 meaning that it’s size if 154 percent of the foretriangle of the boat (the part forward of the mast and aft of the forward stay). The largest genoa that I had on Elektra was a 140 and that was big. Anyay, that sail is really for light wind and off the wind work so it needs to be big, and it really is.

The inner jib is much smaller but still looked tremdous when laid out on the floor. It has a luff (the total hight from foot to head) of 54′ and 360 square feet, which explains why it looks so big. Even though it’s half othe size of the genoa, it’s still a really big sail. You an see in the photo just how much of the room it took up. And, it’s the smaller of the sails. On top of it is the storm jib which is a lilliputian 106 square feet. It needs to be small as it will only be used when it’s blowing over 35 or 40 kts, something that’s not loads of fun.

The third photo is of the main. It’s still huge at 400 square feet. that means that when I am flying the genoa and main I have up over 1,000 square feet of sail. Most impressive, I can tell you, especially when the wind is a bit too strong. Oddly, while the sails look really enormous in the loft, they don’t look that big on the boat. And the working jib looks downright small.

This photo is of the main which I have included to give you a real feel for just how big it is. That’s TK and he’s not a minature guy at all. That’s a really big sail.

Anyway, the plan is to replace the main and genoa this year and see what the jib looks like when we check it out again in the Spring. I am thinking about putting foam luffs on the jib and genoa so that I can roll them up a bit when it gets too windy but not so much that I want to shift to another sail. A foam luff is created by putting closed cell foam in the front of the sail in varying widths so that when the sail rolls up it does so in a way that helps the sail keep it’s shape.

Interestingly, in our global economy, the sails will be made in South Africa and airfreighted up to the States. And, they still cost a fortune.

Well, we do need to be able to make those fast SAGAs fast.