Where's New Morning?

We're still in Newport. We can't leave before next Wednesday and the way the weather is developing it's probably more like Thursday or Friday. But we're using our time to prepare, organize the boat, repair/break/repair a few things and generally get caught up on our sleep.

Just before we departed Maine, Ben Ellison, who writes Panbo, a widely read marine electronics blog name, gave us Spot. See Where's New Morning to see how we're using it.

Still in Newport

We're still in Newport, planning to depart for Bermuda the middle of next week.

To our surprise we've had a pretty busy social schedule. Friends came to visit from California last weekend. Friends we met in Thomaston came down to Newport and introduced us to people here and as a result we've had a lot of evenings out.

Friday we got out for a sail to check on a few changes we made and for Billy Black to shoot some additional pictures. He also gave me the green light to post a few of the pictures he took in Maine. The sailing picture was obviously take in light air which was why we did another set of pictures last week in good sailing breeze.

But it does give you an idea of what she looks like under sail. The other two are just great examples of his photography. The shot to the right is from the swim platform looking forward through the cockpit. And to the left is a shot of the interior from the companionway. He takes long exposures and only shoots in the first and last hour of light in the day; the deep blue gives the pictures a lot of depth. We're expecting to see his pictures in 2-3 magazine articles to be published later this year.

Newport!

Last weekend we completed our first passage, from Thomaston, Maine to
Newport, Rhode Island via the Cape Cod Canal. It was roughly 200
miles and overall a really nice trip. Justin from Lyman Morse joined
us for the passage and stood watch with Fay.

We left on Saturday morning with a goal of being at the east entrance
to the canal by 9am on Sunday morning to catch the ebbing current into
Buzzards Bay. We were able to sail from about 11 in the morning until
midnight, first on a nice fast beam reach, and later with the wind on
the nose. The first half of the evening we had 15-20 on the nose and
had to deviate from our desired course by 10-20 degrees, but with
essentially no swell and small waves so it was a fast ride and
relatively smooth. Smooth enough for Fay to make a great pasta
dinner! And then a 3/4 moon lit up the water magnificently.

By midnight we'd been lifted back to our desired course, but when the
wind went aft we couldn't make the speed necessary to reach the canal
and catch the favorable tide so we had to motor. We motored from
roughly midnight, then through the canal and for another hour or so on
Sunday morning crossing Buzzard's Bay. Then we got 6-7 knots of
breeze so we went back to sailing. The breeze built steadily through
the day until we had 12-15 knots of apparent wind that allowed us to
sail all the way into Newport harbor.

My personal highlight was seeing Weatherly, a classic America's Cup 12
meter which successfully defended the cup in 1962. We were on port
gybe and she was on starboard gybe and I expected than when we gybed
(she had the right of way), she would sail right through our lee.
Instead, we sufficiently blanketed her that she slowed significantly
and we actually sailed back over the top of her! A small victory for
the heavy cruising boat (we had just taken on 3,000 lbs of fuel and
water) over the classic racer.

New Morning performed very well, moving quite nicely in the lighter
breezes and standing up well when we were hard on the wind in 17-20
knots for 4-5 hours on Saturday night. A few gremlins are still
lurking in the electronics and electrical systems, but everything else
performed as expected.

Now we're tied up at the Newport Shipyard (established 1834)
surrounded by mega-yachts and a few state of the art racers like
Virgin Money / Speedboat. We'll be here for about two weeks or so
with lots of projects to complete before the passage to Bermuda; we
hope to leave by November 4th or 5th. But today was a rest day so Fay
had a nice long walk through Newport. I stayed on the boat and
enjoyed the warm weather (back to shorts / flip flops) trying to
perfect a better technique for whipping lines.

It's good to be out of Maine and starting our trip.

Last few things

We got back from California and took off for four days of cruising for
a final check. Just after we got back from California they hauled the
boat and cleaned the bottom. There was a lot of marine growth and
barnacles in particular. With a clean bottom and steady NW breezes we
had two of our best days of sailing. We were able to sail all the way
from Pt. Clyde to Rockland, and two days later we were able to sail
all afternoon from Seal Cove on Vinalhaven back to Pt. Clyde (and then
motor up the river to Thomaston).

We found a variety of things that needed attention so we've been back
in Thomaston for the last couple of days. Fortunately the yard made
very good progress and things should be wrapped up today. The fuel
truck is coming in a couple of hours to fill our tanks and we'll also
get our propane tanks topped up.

Fay has done lots of provisioning at the local stores where she can
get great produce, meat, cheese, crab, lobster, shrimp and of course
great bread from Atlantic Bakery. The freezer will be full upon
departure!

It's raining today, but should clear up this afternoon and the
forecast is for lots of sun this weekend. We plan to depart for
Newport late Saturday morning. With a fair breeze we'll be at the
Cape Cod canal on Sunday morning to catch a favorable tide and sweep
us through to Newport by mid-day on Sunday. The journey begins.