Letter from Atlantia 19/10/05. (or 10/19/05 as the Americans say)

Of Weather, Whales and Yachts.

We have had fog, sunshine, cold, mist, rain and wind, (quite a lot of that), so we have been very at home in New England. We have seen Right Whales (with Vicky and Tony but not mentioned last time), Fin Whales and Humpback Whales. We thought we saw a pilot whale but we put that down as a ‘maybe’.

We have been to Newport, Rhode Island, where the America’s Cup was defended for forty years and we have been to the Herreshoff Museum in Bristol, which is a small town just North of Newport and where some of the most famous of all the America’s Cup yachts were built by Nathaniel Herreshoff and his brother John in the late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds. Most people in Britain will have heard of Sir Thomas Lipton and his famous challengers for the cup, the Shamrocks. Nat Herreshoff designed, and with brother John, built the defenders!

On Atlantia we have had to replace the speed log readout instrument, the depth readout and the radar. The latter has been a great success since it is now mounted in the cockpit and the helmsman now has another pair of eyes helping, which is especially good in the fog or in the dark. It is a Furuno, which is a lot better than our ten year old Raytheon. So far the sails, the engine and the gearbox with a bit of TLC (and oil checking), have done well. The Ratsey and Lapthorne sails made by Andy Cassells are particularly good.

Atlantia had an ‘in water’ survey in Newport, Rhode Island by Mark Ashton and we are pleased to say she was pronounced in good condition, with only a few minor items to attend to. One was a forestay base pin to be replaced. This was the temporary pin that had been used since the previous one had come out on our Atlantic crossing. It was replaced immediately! And now looks much more business like, although Margaret hurt her rib accomplishing the mission. (She is recovering well.)

In Newport we had the contrast of 12 meters sailing past, and liners at anchor nearby including the QM2.

Back to the trip, lest we start to sound like the late, great, Alistair Cooke. In Camden we had to spend a few days waiting for parts, but had a foray over to Pennobscot Bay to see the Ospreys nest at Pulpit harbour. The nest has been dated at over 120 years old.

We had dinner with the lighthouse caretakers on Curtis Island, Connie and Deedee Conover, who were most gracious and hospitable. They had previously sailed the Atlantic with their family, but had now settled in Camden, looking after the lighthouse in the summer.

In the winter, Camden is covered in snow, and some of the pictures in the shops depicting the schooners in their covers, iced into the bay, with snow all around, are delightful but obviously cold! It was quite cold while we were there, but we didn’t manage to fix the heater until we were at Bristol, three weeks later!

We sailed up to Belfast (which means ‘good anchorage’) and down the Eggemoggin Reach to the Wooden Boat School. This is a very well set up and run school and shop, which teaches people to build their own wooden boats. Will nearly bought a half built pram dinghy there for finishing off, but unfortunately we would have had to wait for four days for additional parts, time which we didn’t have. Whilst at the Wooden Boat School we were lucky to see a chipmonk

.

We left this part of Maine from Long Cove where we were anchored next to Canty, belonging to Paul and Marty Rogers. Paul, (another Transatlantic sailor), had been very hospitable to us in Camden and it was delightful to see them again in such a lovely anchorage.

Our trip down to Boston was only eventful in that we had to weather out a nasty bit of wind and rain for a day in Casco Bay, and then the following day had thirty knots of wind behind us with a lovely blue sky. We stopped in Pefferil Cove, Portsmouth. It boasts the oldest village store in family ownership in America. Fortunately the food was fresh, even though the store was decked out as if it came from the nineteen thirties! It had a model T Ford truck outside.

Hundreds of cormorants gathered at the anchorage. It is obviously a good place to fish.

Our trip around Cape Anne was made in a flat calm, although we had a breeze going into Boston. We managed full sail then. In Boston we again stayed on a mooring at the Waterboat Marina. The mooring was right over the top of the blue underground line, and every time a train passed through the tunnel we could hear it from our boat above, screeching brakes included! Larry, the owner of the marina, had been a harbour pilot there for over forty years, before retiring to run the wharf, where his family had docked their boat, carrying fresh water to anchored ships, for three generations previously. We met some very pleasant people there, and even watched a baseball game (Boston Redsox vs New York Yankies) on the television in the marina office. Apparently it was an important game, which we are pleased to report that the Redsox won! (it’s all rounders to Will!)

Whilst in Boston we went on a whale watching catamaran. A school teacher aboard said she was pleased to meet us. Previously she had only read about people like us in books, and was almost overwhelmed to meet real live cruising sailors. She omitted to look to see if we had hair on the palms of our hands, or talked to ourselves, but you could see what she was thinking. The whales were superb, feeding away near the surface, and diving, tails up, when people were bored seeing their backs. They didn’t seem to mind the presence of the watching boats, and the humpbacks even waved their flippers at us once or twice. This gave us the confidence the following day to take Atlantia whale watching in the same spot. We were rewarded when three humpback whales surfaced only 20 yards on our bow. We were all going the same direction at four knots. It’s a good job they know when a boat is above them. (at least we think they know!)

No visiting yachtsman can pass this part of the world without a visit to Marblehead.,just North of Boston. The spacious harbour has hundreds of yachts moored there and the town itself is very pretty, and the chandleries very helpful, even on a Sunday. Pumpkins are in abundance on market stalls, since it is coming up for Halloween.

We were guests of the Eastern Yacht Club for two nights. The Eastern has International One Designs as part of their fleet, and only the previous week had seen them host the North American IOD Championships. We were sorry we hadn’t been there a week earlier to see some of the people we had raced against in the 1980’s. Apparently Bill Widnell is still racing there. He was IOD World Champion on a number of occasions. Regrettably we didn’t see him.

We left Marblehead in the fog, which is when we realised the old radar wasn’t actually working! We seemed to miss the shipping, travelling in and out of Boston, though. keen (and slightly nervous) ears kept a sharp listen out. We stopped to watch two humpbacked whales feeding, which of course meant that we arrived at our anchorage, at the west end of the Cape Cod Canal in the dark. It didn’t help that we had a four knot current against us in the canal, and that the only railway bridge closed just in front of us at sunset, still some two miles from the anchorage. We watched the train try to make up its mind which way it wanted to go, as it went forwards then backwards on the bridge. Eventually it went over, just as the last light faded, and we were pleased that the chart plotter was working so well, and that the charts and G.P.S. were so accurate in this part of the world.

Our motor sail to Newport was uneventful and we were sorry not to see Hank there, who we had met on Victoria of Strathearn in September. He was most helpful in finding us a surveyor however, before he went off to the Annapolis boat show. Mark, the surveyor, in turn was very helpful in finding us Matt Frieze of Custom Navigation, who replaced our radar so efficiently, ably helped by his co worker D.J.. We can highly recommend them for electronics work in this part of the world. They in turn suggested we went to the Herreshoff Museum at Bristol, in order to escape the gale force winds and pouring rain blasting down from the North. It was at this time that we met Chip and Helen McKeen from their aluminium yacht, ‘Tangent Girl’, who were most helpful in assisting Margaret to buy a new toilet, and putting Will in the right direction to be able to mend the heater. Much needed considering the cold and rainy weather at the time.

The Herreshoff Museum was a delight with many dinghies on show, as well as bigger cruising yachts and an ex coastguard cutter. There is a great show of photographs there and a reconstruction of Nat Herreshoffs half model room.

All his great designs were carried out by him, in the first instance, as a half model, in the tradition of all ship builders previously. Together, with Watson and William Fife, Nat Herreshoff ranks as amongst the finest yacht designers ever. His largest America’s cup defender, a 90 foot (waterline) class, Reliance , was constructed of steel frames, bronze bottom plating, steel top sides and an aluminium deck. No doubt electrolysis made it fall apart fairly quickly, but not until it had securely retained the America’s cup for the New York Yacht Club.

Whilst at the dock at the museum, we were pleased to have Missy and Ben on board for drinks. The following day Missy was very helpful in driving us to West Marine for some essential parts for Atlantia.

From Bristol we had a wet sail down to Newport and onwards to the Connecticut river again. Although it was windy and wet, the wind came from behind us and we were relatively comfortable in the large waves that took us into Long Island Sound. We spent a day at Old Lyme Marina, whilst it blew up to forty knots from the West. We watched the turkey vultures riding on the wind above us, and the geese flying South for the winter. Some of them didn’t make it, as we heard the wild fowlers banging away at first light.

The wind abated enough, (thirty knots on the nose), for us to sail up Long Island Sound to see David and Timmy Larr again, in Cold Spring Harbour, Oyster Bay. We arrived after dark, fairly tired from our seventy five mile beat in choppy seas, but happy that the new radar is proving itself to be excellent. Last night we were delighted to be David and Timmy’s guests at the New York Yacht Club, for a talk on Nelson, on the bicentennial date of Trafalgar. The talk was given by Doctor Bill Cogar, in a most interesting manner. It was split into three parts, The Sailor, The Man and The God! It was extremely well researched and illustrated. Bill and his wife, Jackie were staying with Timmy and David last night, so we were pleased to share a whisky before going back in our dinghy to Atlantia, anchored at the bottom of the garden! The dinner at the New York Yacht Club was excellent, and it was good to meet so many pleasant and interesting sailors.

Our aim now is to sail south to Norfolk, Virginia and thence to Bermuda, weather permitting, about the first or second week in November. We will keep you posted. We hope you can download all the additional pictures. Love from Atlantia.