So far, when we have had wind, it was mostly from the SW, pushing us along to the east. On this passage from Edgartown, however, the wind was from the NE; it was a beat and we put up the single reefed main and small jib, sacrificing some speed, especially when the wind diminished a bit, for greater comfort and control. The mileage reported in the title of each post is measured along the shortest logical route. "Logical" is my word meaning I exclude hazardous shortcuts. I mark off waypoints on the paper charts, draw lines between them, measure the length of each line and add up the total -- mooring to mooring.
But beating back and forth makes actual mileage longer. Assuming one can tack at a 90 degree angle and ignoring the leeway one gets, my high school geometry, if I remember correctly, gives the relationship between the lengths of sides of a right triangle as "one, one and the square route of two". Thus we would go two miles tacking as compared to 1.414 along the hypotenuse of the straight course. Two is more than 1/3 more than 1.414. On this passage I marked dots close to the points where we tacked, and after arrival calculated that mileage and it was only 28.4, much less than 1/3 more than the nominal 25.8. Well some of this was because more than four miles of the total were motoring out of Edgartown and into Hyannis on the nominal route, but the reason that the actual was not much longer than the shortest logical is that the shortest logical course was not a straight line to the northeast but a series of more northerly segments at the beginning and end with more easterly legs in the middle. Also the wind changed half way through the passage. It started at about 45 degrees and ended clocked around to 70 degrees.
It was a fun sail from 7:15 to 12:15, extended by a trip further into the Hyannis inner harbor for fuel and to refill water tanks. We had used up the water in one tank and been running on the other for the last thirteen day. Both are now full. And we have used 20.4 gallons of diesel since City Island, in twelve days, during which we had the engine on 27.5 hours. Some of these hours are merely to operate the refrigeration, in neutral. But I had wondered whether the higher pitch of our propeller would affect out gallon per hour burn rate. Nope; still 3/4 of a gallon per hour. But I suppose some of you are bored by now with all the math.
Hyannis is a nice YC with about 500 members and several thousand additional social members. The club is on a beach and on our arrival the youth program was in full swing with many kids learning to sail and even more swimming off the beach. We took the launch ashore to drop garbage, pay for our mooring and take showers, and returned for a delicious steak dinner aboard.
We were here aboard ILENE in 2008, but this time our trip coincided with a visit by Lee, of my book group, his wife Patty and their sons Aaron and Benjamin, to the nearby home they have owned for over sixty years. Small, lovely and with an outdoor shower! We spent a full twelve hour day with them, including all three meals, a walk to the beach at nearby Lewis Bay, and after lunch, a bike ride, of only about 1.5 miles, to Seagull Beach, on Vinyard Sound where we swam and walked. Their guests of the night before are oyster farmers who brought a bag of Wellfleets. And I learned a new skill -- oyster shucking! Our friends also chauffeured us everywhere: laundry, supermarket, post office, drug store, RadioShack and back to the laundry to pick up the fresh stuff.
Next day we took them to lunch at the Club, and Lee and Aaron accompanied us for a day sail out in Vineyard Sound. They had a good time and Aaron mastered the wheel, which was a challenge with strong winds in the mid twenties. Our round trip was fifteen miles, mostly near a beam reach, with reefer main and small job. We hit 8.1 knots and this against a small tide.
I created an accidental collision with 2013 41 foot Beneteau moored near us due to impatience, ego, foolishness and stupidity on my part as we were leaving. Our port side hit his anchor. I called the Club immediately to report the incident and went to his boat to exchange info with its owner upon our return. He is cruising back to Annapolis and checking out his anchor and I need a new stanchion.
The other excitement occurred near the end of the sail when the pin in the shackle that holds the main sheet block to the traveller sheared, making for the boom swinging free, back and forth. I secured it temporarily and had a replacement shackle aboard that I put in when we got onto the mooring. Too much negative excitement for one day, if you ask me.
We had planned to sail to Nantucket on August 6, but took another lay day in Hyannis and have sadly decided to blow off Nantucket this season. The reason was the weather and the tides. During the night the ride was bouncy due to strong winds in the harbor. Several weather sources said it was to be from the SW at 10 to 20 knots. The direction was correct but it was a lot stronger. Our instruments in the morning showed the wind in the low 30s with gusts to 40. But one does not need instrument to hear the wind howling in the rigging and feel the bouncing of the boat. And with all night to build them, the waves outside the harbor would be much greater. Finally, most folks are sensible enough to stay put in punishing winds. No one came in to Hyannis YC. So if we had gotten to Nantucket today, there was a strong likelihood that there would not be an available mooring for us there.
And Nantucket had to be scratched because the next leg, to Provincetown, is a long 69 mile passage through Pollock Rip Channel and we wanted favorable tide and an early start. We plan to start at 7 on August 7th. Each of the next few days if we had spent them in Nantucket would have meant almost an hour additional delay in the starting time.
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