Bennett's Beneteau

I had the pleasure of sailing with Bennett, Ed and Ian on Bennett's new Beneteau, 37 feet long built in 2011 and quite beautiful and fast.

Ed and I left our cars at the Harlem and got into the rented car at 7:30 A.M on May 30 for the ride up to North Wickford,  RI.  The boat was almost ready to go. But I noticed that one section of the stainless steel tubing that holds up the bimini had come loose from the socket which holds it in place and was dangling, though fortunately the two allen head set screws which clamp it into the socket were not missing. So during Bennett's drive to drop off the car, he picked up a tool kit and the broker went and got his allen wrenches and this was fixed. This repair was at the bottom of the diagonal from the upper right down to the left, to the built in starboard davit.

We also got a bottle of Spray Nine cleaner and took up a lot of the pollen that coated the boat -- another disadvantage of being on the land.

I was all in favor of not dropping below five knots to make sure that I got home reasonably early so as to not miss the flight that Lene and I are taking to Amsterdam today, the day after our arrival. But it was tough at first using the motor only. Somehow we seemed to have good tide at first and good wind later, after we got south of  Point Judith and headed west to home. 

We departed at 1:20 pm and arrived at City Island at 10:20 am the next day, May 31 -- 21 hours for the 130 nautical mile passage, almost six knots. Two rainstorms before dinner, the first light and the second heavy, showed that the new boat is toasty dry inside. I am calling her "the new boat" because her current name is "Ohana" (I wonder what that was all about) and Bennett has not yet selected her new name.

Dinner was fine despite confusion as to provisioning. We had trouble finding the switch that controls the solenoid that lets propane flow from its tank to the burner. We also found that the yard had not done a good job of flushing all of the propelene glycol (pink antifreeze) from the fresh water tanks. The water had a funky taste and smell, so we used bottled water to boil the pasta. And we had only one pot so after draining the pasta (no strainer or pot holders so I used the lid to keep the pasta in and clothing to hold the pot) I poured the jar of vodka sauce (which had been placed in the refrigerator) into the pot and with low heat and stirring it all got warm. The only utensil was a spatula but with it and fork we got the pasta onto plates.  No salt, pepper or grated cheese but it was warm and filled our bellies. We also had confusion about the accompanying salad. We had four prepared packaged bowls of Ceasar salad that I had not known about. And redundantly, we had lettuce, tomato and cucumber, but no dressing for the salad I had planned to make. So I added some of those fresh vegetables to the prepared salad, used its dressing and again, the crew was happy.

 Ian and I were off duty from eight pm until one am. So we missed the passage through The Race, which I was told was made at 7.5 knots speed over ground, near the slack. 

We have tentatively decided that the boat does not have a speedo to measure speed through the water, and no instrument to display such, or at least we have not founds such yet. The relevant speed, except for racers, is SOG, with water speed useful only to know how much positive or negative effect the current is causing. SOG and depth ( and we do not yet know whether depth is calibrated as actual number of feet of water, like on ILENE, or number of feet below the keel, which some prefer) are shown in data boxes on the Raymarine radar/chartplotter display. It is a larger and newer model than ILENE's. 

Bennett has to learn how to use this tool better, which will come with reading the manual and playing with it. We were shown a control for changing the brightness, which must be turned way down at night, but we forgot how to do it and could not figure out how to do it once it got light in the morning whereupon we could not see the screen. But we also had two Ipads with iNavX, so our position, course to waypoint and speed were always known. Our use of the Raymarine unit as a chart plotter had to end earlier when we ran off of the edge of the chart. The prior owner had the electronic chip containing the charts for New England. This extended only to the waters of extreme eastern Long Island Sound and we sailed off the edge it its "known world".

We had experimented with the sails, including the in-mast roller-furled main, with vertical battens, but the wind was either too light and or too much in front of us from the west to be used consistently and so we had motored the whole way until about 3 am when the wind came up on our starboard side in the teens, and we sailed home on a beamy close reach and made up to seven knots.  The boat is beamy and carries her beam well aft making her stiff (stable against excessive heeling) and roomy. Both sails are drawing well but both could use an inch or two of luff tension next light wind day. Their halyards can both be led aft to the cockpit.

She has an interesting and clever hatch board. It has a built in lock at the bottom, is hinged at the top from which it lifts up and aft and then slides in horizontally, forward, under the coach roof. So there is no need to find places to stow the hatch boards and lock. Her built in cockpit table has wide side extensions and a socket in which to plug a detachable electric lamp for evening enjoyment on the mooring.

The propane tank is rather smaller but there is room in the locker for a second one. The locker is a rather flimsy thing with a strap to hold down its lid, located on the deck in the port aft quarter. (To reach it, you lift up the helmsperson's seat to starboard and then the port quarter of the cockpit bench tilts lifts up and outboard to port revealing a space for a life raft and the propane locker.) The less rugged construction of the propane locker is not unsafe because in the unlikely event that propane leaks, it will leak out into the cockpit sole and thence flow out over the stern, which is quite open save for two lifelines, and not up across the raised threshold at the companionway into the cabin. There is very little backrest for persons seated on the sides at the aft end of the cockpit and at the helmsperson's seat. So at least one of those blue folding seats with back rests will make for more comfortable seating. She has many fewer lines than On Eagles Wings, but most of them are not whipped, so there is still something I can do to be useful during future sails.

Bennett, Ed and Ian on the Harlem launch

All told it was a very easy and pleasant passage and upon returning to the Harlem I drove Bennett and Ian to Bennett's home in NJ.