Honeymoon Passage 2002 -- a "Near Death Experience"?

This sea story is 14 years old. It occurred during our honeymoon in August 2002. My beloved calls it our "near death experience," one dark and stormy night, but she exaggerates. I think you will find it exciting despite my customary low key unemotional account of it, the only key I know

We sailed our Tartan 34, also called ILENE. (We could have called ILENE, "ILENE II" but I feared it would have sounded too much like a rustic woodland shelter--"leanto" -- on the radio.) She was very fast for its length. We had spent a couple of days going from New York City to Block Island, where we met up with other, longer and faster Tartans for a two week group trip to Maine with TONE (Tartan Owners of New England).

One fact that caused our problem was my lack of knowledge as to the amount of diesel fuel we had aboard. Our first boat, Just Cause, a Pearson 28, had a very simple gauge to measure how much fuel was left -- in that case gasoline.  A thin teak stick was inserted from the fill hole, located in the cockpit sole, directly down about two feet until it touched the bottom of the fuel tank. It had lines scribed in it for half and quarter full. When you pulled it out, the wet part told you how full the tank was. (Like a dip stick measures your oil.) The more modern boats do not have a straight path from the fill to the tank bottom, and so gauges have replaced the unbreakable stick, but the gauges never work.

We had filled our tank in Old Saybrook CT and with light summer winds had motored to Block Island. Our next passage was also a light wind day, and being shorter and hence rated slower, we left Block Island before the other boats in the group, and motored for Onset, Mass., at the juncture of Buzzards Bay and the Cape Cod Canal. But the others soon caught up and asked me if I could crank on a few more rpms. "Sure!"   Oh, I forgot to mention how blisteringly hot it was that day. After a while the overheating alarm piped up and we shut down the engine. I called on the VHF and told the others to proceed -- we would catch up. I checked out the engine for possible causes of the overheating and this took me longer than it would a trained mechanic, maybe half an hour. During that time the ladder that closes the engine compartment was off, exposing the engine to relatively cooler air while we drifted safely but slowly on the near glassy surface of eastern Block Island Sound. Finding nothing wrong, we turned the engine back on, the heat alarm did not sound, and we proceeded, under motor, but without those extra rpms.

We got to Onset in time for the party but after the fuel dock had closed for the night; no problem, we can fill up in the morning, before we leave. Except that the six hour period when the tide was fair in the Cape Cod Canal ended rather early in the morning. We had to leave Marion at daybreak, before the fuel dock opened, or wait until the afternoon. The group's plan was to transit the Canal, cross Cape Cod Bay passing Provincetown to starboard, continue across the Stellwagen Banks, the Bay of Maine, known as Bigelow Bight, pass Monhegan Island to port, enter Penobscot Bay and head up its west coast to reach our destination, Tenant's Harbor, Maine, the next morning after a passage of about 160 miles, which would take close to 27 hours at a 6 knot pace.

After motoring through the canal on the tail end of that fair tide we should have pulled in to the marina at its far end, to starboard, in Sandwich Mass and fueled up there. But I didn't. And the day's wind was again light, with the wind from behind us. So crossing Cape Cod Bay we were motor sailing and hence using more of our fuel. We also declined to detour into Provincetown for fuel. My mistakes. Bravado and the desire not to fall behind. After all, we are a sailboat, right?

In those days I had not yet figured out how to measure fuel consumption by keeping track of engine hours, so as to compute, from tank capacity and burn rate, how many hours I could run the engine before we would run out.

One bad experience near mid day was an accidental jibe as we were crossing the Stellwagen Banks on a near dead starboard run. Lene was hanging towels to dry on the port lifelines. She got whacked on the side of her head by the boom. Fortunately, she was hit when the boom had reached the very end of its swing, rather than potentially being thrown out of the boat if she had been hit mid arc. We were also fortunate, regarding that jibe, that the wind was light. The boom's swing was not very fast. A proper preventer line, which we have now, would have prevented the jibe. Lene sat, with ice in a towel held against her head and cried. All I could do was tell her how sorry I was while I continued to steer the boat. Thankfully, after an hour or so her mood brightened. The bump took longer to go down. But this close encounter with the potentially deadly boom is not what she refers to as our "near death experience". We continued, crossing the Stellwagen Banks, but without sighting any of the whales that cavort there.

The wind gently pushed us along all day and a storm was predicted for the night. We were flying the big Genoa and the full main, to get as much speed as we could without the engine. There was more wind pushing us along as the day wore on but the boat was not setting any speed records. We were not making any six knots.

After dinner and before dark we reefed the main and furled the genoa in precaution because a storm was predicted. This slowed us, but better safe than sorry. When the storm came up, it was a big nothing for us. A few gusts of wind but only twenty drops of rain and a vast quantity of lightning. But the lightning was from under the horizon, off stage. We neither heard thunder nor saw the bolts, but the skies all around us were bright as day when the fireworks exploded radiating light from under the horizon to the heavens.

And then it was over. No storm, no rain, no more lightning -- and almost no wind. But let's be patient; so we waited another hour to make sure the storm was really gone. Finally, maybe ten or eleven p.m., we shook the reef out of the big main, unfurled the big 153 racing genny and picked up speed.

And shortly, the wind came back, except now it was in front of us, from the northeast, and we were close hauled. The Tartan had a 6' 3" keel and pointed very well -- we were moving again and fast. But the wind kept building. Yep, a Nor'easter!  And the bearing to the mouth of Penobscot Bay was northeast. Too much sail up. We had to reduce sail to gain control and reduce heeling. We tried to furl the Genoa, but Lene was a lot newer to sailing, especially at night in a storm. I handled the lines, and a flailing jib sheet slapped against the main sail, tearing a seam. Unfortunately the tear was above the main's reefing cringle. If the tear had been below the cringle, we could have simply gathered the lower part of the main into the bunt of the reef and proceeded under the reefed main, which was our planned next step anyway. But the tear forced us to drop the main entirely, wrap it up, and proceed under Genoa alone. I'm pretty handy with needle and thread, but sewing that seam was a long daylight job in calm conditions, not standing on the coach roof in the dark in a howling wind.  Well one good thing: not much rain that night.

(We also found that the compass light was not working but were able to rig a flashlight above it and keep replacing its batteries)

I never thought to go back -- put the wind behind us. This would have reduced apparent wind speed by ten knots and permitted the waves to help us rather than slam down our boat speed, time and again. But what port would we put into? It would have to be one that we had never been to before. And at night in the storm? At least if we continued it would be light before we arrived.

The engine would not have propelled us much in the big seas that the winds were whipping up -- whether working with the Genoa or without. We tried. The boat was pitching too much, with the prop rising out of the water when the bow slanted down, thus exposing the prop to cavitation. This would not do the engine or prop any good nor move the boat forward very much.

Oh yes, we were tacking and my thought was that we were safer further from the rocky Maine shore than nearer. We had never yet visited the beautiful Isles of Shoals, but on the chart they looked big, rocky and ugly. Even their name evokes fear. They were nearer the coast.  The coast of lower Maine is a big bay -- Bigelow Bight. If we tacked north, in toward shore, and then east, back out again to the rhumb line, we would have averaged closer to shore. I elected instead to go east, away from shore and then north, back to the rhumb line, to stay in deeper waters. We ended up at one point about 40 miles off the coast, which Lene considers an error in my judgement to this day. I guess she is right. The rhumb line was far from the Isles of Shoals, which are only seven miles off the coast. But hypothermia would have finished us off in minutes whether we were one mile or 40 miles off shore. With what I know now, we were foolhardy in going off shore without a proper life raft and EPIRB. Our dinghy was no substitute for the former. It would have been swamped by the big waves in seconds and the water's of Maine will kill a person by hypothermia in a matter of minutes. We were lucky.

Lene asked me to call the Coast Guard.  I told her that they would ask: Are your lives are in danger? Do you wish to abandon ship?" If not, their job is to help us contact a commercial towing company to tow us if we need to be towed. This was before Alfie Girl and Witty were born and Lene wanted to say "Yes!" But I was not considering abandoning ship. I went below for a few minutes to consult the cruising guides and charts. We seemed to be about equidistant from Tenant's Harbor and Portland. I elected Portland, though it was far from the destination of the others in the group, because more repair facilities were located there. We radioed to let the others know not to expect us for the next few days. Another boat, relayed that message to them for us because we were more than 20 miles from them, out of VHF radio range.

It started to get light before daybreak and by late morning we saw the red and white buoy "P", standing outside Casco Bay, in which Portland Harbor is located. N 43 degrees, 31.6; W 70 degrees 05.5 minutes. Lene was exultant. But Portland was north of us in Casco Bay about 11 miles away, and that bay has many islands and shoals. And the wind had not diminished. We tacked our way up the Bay and tuned into Portland Harbor. When we pulled into the inner harbor we furled the sail and headed, under motor, straight for DeMillo's fuel dock where ILENE took a big drink, though her tank was by no means empty. But I would not want to have guessed wrong on that issue and tried to pull onto an unknown dock under genoa in big winds.

Then to Portland Yacht Services, which offers dockage and a mooring field and provides a home to many marine service contractors. They directed us to their mooring field but Lene got on the radio and told them that they WOULD give us dockage! They agreed when I added that we needed repairs. We were on the dock at about 5:30 p.m., about 36 hours after we has set out at daybreak the day before. Lene had gone below for a few hours of rest during the passage, I did not.

The yard told us they would scope out our work requests the next morning, the primary one being the repair of the mainsail. Much of our clothing and bed clothes had gotten wet, or at least damp. The dorades, which are supposed  let in ventilating air but filter out sea water, were great, but after being heeled over so far for so long they had let some of the seawater that was being sprayed up over the bow into the cockpit. So hot showers in the yard, fresh dry linens on the bed and Lene made a delicious pasta dinner before a very long good night's sleep. She recalls that I fell asleep while standing up making up the V berth, and that my head lay on the table while eating her dinner.

I had another fear, one that I did not tell Lene about until after we were safely tied to the dock. What if the Genoa had been ripped apart by the force of the wind? Then we would have had no good means of propulsion out in the wind storm. But that did not happen.

In the morning the local sailmaker came, took off our main, promised to bring it back fixed the next day -- and he kept his promise. It is amazing how cooperative the recreational maritime industry is, when possible, in fixing things promptly so cruising sailors can get on with their cruises.

(It was a racing sail, made of many panels of high tech fabric stitched together. Racing sails hold their optimal curved shape until the end of their life, when they fall apart. One panel had flown apart and the sailmaker warned us that this would now continue to happen, and it did, three weeks later, when we were near home. Racing sails increase speed but cost a lot more and do not last near as long. Ah the learning curve never ends. We got home at Labor Day and bought a new sail during the winter.)

In Portland, when everything was fixed I heard the best words possible from my new bride, my mate. What I feared hearing was: "I'm flying home and I'll see you back in New York!" But instead Lene asked:  "Where do we go next?" My reply:  "I married the right girl!" The remainder of our three weeks together in Maine and coming home, were great fun, but not the subject of this post.

I hope you enjoyed this sea story.