Made home port last night
We ended up leaving Milford CT Friday morning a bit late at 10am, had to replace the starter button (scored one CHEAP on ebay and he has more)and re-tighten some connections on the panel. Light winds, so we motor sailed about 50 miles to Stonington CT, a great place to stop with a great restaurant and plenty of cheap moorings (as I recall it was $47 including launch service). We took off in the morning around 7:30am with no wind to speak of. We baked in the sun all day as we across RI and into Buzzards Bay around 5:30pm.
It turned out that we hit the canal about an hour after the current turned against us. The Captain had misread the tables. We should have been clued in by the 4-6 foot seas we passed through at the mouth of it. I re-examined the tables and found the error. We persevered, motor sailing through the canal with an ever weakening current that started at 3 knots against us. It cost us about an extra hour to our stop in Sandwich (8:30pm arrival), where we took much welcomed hot showers. All I have to say about the canal is "10 knots and no wake" is bull. We got buzzed by one guy doing 50 in a cigarette boat and saw nearly every "rule" in the canal broken except for no water skiing.
The next morning the weather was looking dicey. Patches of dark clouds were passing overhead, threatening rain, but we saw no lightning. We topped off the tank (amazingly we had only burned 10.8 gallons in about 130 miles) and left just after a bank of dark clouds passed. We motored with absolutely no wind up to Scituate, with only one very brief rainshower, then the wind piped up. We put up the sails and made about 6.5 knots with the rail down all the way into Boston. We arrived around 3pm.
It was a great experience, even if it was pretty mundane overall. I know now that I can trust my little 2QM15 to run until the cows come home (Sat. we ran her 13 hours at 5.5 knots / 2800rpm with a two blade prop) and I now have first hand experience that coastal navigation is far from rocket science. We didn't do as much sailing as I would have liked, but I certainly did have an opportunity to bond with "Triple Play." So far there is little not to like. Even in 15-20 knots steady with gusts of 25 (the 135 is older but has a newly added foam luff which gave the sail terrific shape when we roller it up to about a 110)she is steady and behaves predictably. She has a nice turn of speed and points well compared to my last boat. The cockpit proved spacious and comfortable. The only down side to the interior so far, after an opinion formed from three days aboard, is the somewhat tight entrance to the head/vee berth.
BobM
