Sails Up, Engine Off

Ahh.

On Saturday, August 4th, we took our first sail on Cilantro. After casting off from the mooring, we motored east through South Bristol Harbor and southeast toward Johns Bay, a wide sound between Rutherford Island (where South Bristol and Bittersweet Landing Boatyard are located) and Pemaquid Point to the east. Once into the bay, Sue took the helm and pointed Cilantro's bow into the wind while Curtis unfurled the mainsail along the boom track. We fell off the wind to a reach and shut down the engine. Sailing!

Curtis sorted through the furling lines and headsail sheets and unfurled the staysail next, followed by the genoa. The wind was light -- maybe 5 knots -- and out of the south, so we began taking long tacks back and forth across Johns Bay. Our anemometer is not yet talking to the display screen at the binnacle, so we estimate wind speed and direction by the Windex (a wonderfully simple analog windvane at the masthead), wavelets, and the air on our cheeks. Even if the anemometer were working, it is good to keep our human "instruments" honed.

Speaking of instruments, we haven't yet purchased a new chartplotter for our Simrad system, so we are using a combination of iNavX on the iPhone and the old but good Northstar 952 that came with the boat. The Northstar has a data chip for this part of the New England coast, but chips for other areas are no longer available, even on eBay or equivalent web sources. Additionally, the Northstar was installed down at the nav station, so you have to leave the helm to look at the screen. iNavX performed beautifully on the iPhone, but the screen is small. Also, we haven't yet put the phone into its waterproof case, so we were very protective of it in the cockpit. We did squeeze on its bright orange lifejacket so we could fish the phone out of the water (and cry big salt tears) if it happened to go overboard. We have iNavX on the iPad, too, which of course has a bigger screen, but the waterproof case that we want for it is on backorder. Sigh. At times, having cool electronic gadgets just adds new layers of complication and worry. It would be much simpler in many ways to stick with paper charts (we do have them) and dead reckoning (we know how to do this).

This "breadcrumb" trail on our Northstar 952 chartplotter shows our series of tacks
through Johns Bay. South Bristol Harbor is the small inlet (round blue dot) toward
the upper left where our trail begins. 

Sue at the helm

As luck would have it, shortly after we left the mooring, Bob Steneck had hailed us on the VHF to say that he and Jo were about to pass Pemaquid Point on Alaria, on their way back from ten days cruising "Down East." When they heard we were just heading out, they made a detour to rendezvous with us in Johns Bay and take some pictures of Cilantro under sail. The two Pacific Seacrafts tacked back and forth together for a while, with Bob snapping photos on each pass, before Alaria continued on toward her home mooring in Christmas Cove. (We were unfortunately so engrossed with our own sail-handling that we didn't get any photos of Alaria.)

We sailed Cilantro for nearly three hours, trading off at the helm and on the winches so that we could each get a feel for steering and sail trimming. What worked well for coming about was to wait until the genoa started to backwind before releasing the sheet, so that it would be less likely to foul on the staysail as it came across. Because the staysail is small, we backwinded it until the genoa was trimmed and then brought it across too.

Curtis at the helm

It was a gorgeous afternoon on the water. A dolphin surfaced briefly off our bow, and we also saw a common loon, black guillemot, laughing and herring gulls, ospreys, and about 200 lobster pot buoys. Sue was glad of the light wind on our first day out, but toward the third hour it became even lighter, and variable. As we turned and headed back toward South Bristol Harbor, we were scrounging for enough wind to sail on and had to hug the eastern shore of Johns Bay. A long, slow series of broad reaches, jibing downwind rather than tacking through the wind, brought us to the navigation aids marking the harbor channel entrance, where we furled sails and motored back to the mooring.

Elapsed time: 3 hours, 40 minutes
Distance traveled: 12 or 13 nautical miles (estimated)
Wind direction: southwest, light and variable
Sunburn quotient: mild
Satisfaction level: high

Cilantro under sail in Johns Bay; photo by Bob Steneck on Alaria