September 14 - Cruise 2, Day 8 — Block Island RI to Stonington CT, 25 NM

A problem at first: both the shackle and its pin, which hold the tack of the mainsail (that ring top center sewn into the sail) to the forward end of the boom, we’re found lying on the deck. The pin had worked its way out! This picture shows it after reattachment at our destination where it took a lot of time, the effort of both of us, and four lines tying away the rest of the sail and pulling the ring forward, down, forward and vertical to get the horizontal pin through its hole. The problem was made difficult by having put the reef in the sail, for the day’s passage, which has the effect of pulling the mass of the sail aft. 

A beautiful five hour cruise, from 8 to 1, early start because stronger winds were predicted in the afternoon. Favorable tide in Watch Hill Passage also called for an early morning departure.  The admiral ordered a reefed main and small jib, which were not enough power at the beginning when the apparent wind was only 12 knots, but more than enough at the end when our instruments read 24 knots of apparent wind. And it’s always better to reef earlier than later. The passage included 5.2 NM under motor, (1.5) going out of Block and (3.2) from Watch Hill Passage to the anchorage behind Stonington’s NE seawall: (60 feet of snubbed chain in 15 feet of water at high tide). During the in and out we put on 1.8 engine hours. The fun part was under sail in the Atlantic, 13.3 NM as the crow flies and the purple line is printed on the chart, but we were tacking back and forth (five legs) which took 19.7 NM for a total actual wake of 25 NM. Over the five hours we averaged five knots. On the third track auto was steering and suddenly Lene said, we’re headed too close to the wind. I thought that auto had failed again but he had not, it was a 30 degree wind shift. We were slow, at 4 knots or less on the first underpowered ocean leg, but built to over seven. The tide was helping at the end.  The cats just lay low when it gets rough — we were pounding through waves the tallest of which were five feet — but they lay low all the time anyway.

An alternative destination we considered was Shelter Island, between Long Island’s forks, but that would have been a longer passage, and would have put us on Long Island, more south than Stonington, and with NNE winds forecast for tomorrow morning, a more northerly departure site will be an advantage. All of the forecasts until we get home have some West in them, the prevailing direction in these part.

We are the blue dot. Behind the NE seawall. Lene feared that the SW waves would creep in through the gap between land and the east end of the wall, (the gap shows in the last photo of this post, at sunset) but the chart shows shoals there which broke up the waves, and in any event the winds came around to NW, putting us in the Lee of the houses on the headlands, and by sunset the water was calm.The docks in the NE corner of the harbor and the nearly placed moorings off of them are Dodsons, who we had no reason to patronize this time. The docks southward toward the point are of the Stonington YC, where we have eaten. This time we dined aboard. At sunset. Below, to the left, the dark strip of land seen atop the seawall is Fishers Island and the dot on the water, center, far away, is North Dumpling Island which we pass at the western end of Fishers Island Sound, tomorrow.