Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Distance Travelled: 9.0 nm | Yarmouth Town Landing to PYC

It's been a quiet winter—at least as far as boating is concerned. But after spending the spring moving from Gorham to Portland, I managed to get the boat ready to go in the water over a short, rainy two week period in early May. And on May 17 at 1120, Steve Morse showed up at Tim's North Yarmouth location to haul me down to the Yarmouth Town Landing.

The Usual Routine

There's not much to report about the launch. It's a pretty standard routine for me by now! Once in the water Gere, my father-in-law whom I had invited along for the ride, and I headed the short distance to Royal River Boat Yard where, as usual, they were able to immediately accomodate me for mast stepping. We made quick work of stepping the mast and making fast the forestay and shrouds. However, like last year, the backstay was just a hair short. Even with a halyard lead to a bridle aft we were about a quarter inch short. Rather than fighting it though, I just picked up a toggle and added that to the backstay.

Soon enough we were on our way down the river. Along the way, I noticed that the rudder post stuffing box was leaking more than usual when we had the RPMs up over 2500. I guess I'll need to address that this season. The trip down the river was pleasant enough for the first part of the trip, with partly cloudy skies and a favorable current. We enjoyed sandwiches for lunch and then I began hooking up the mast wiring down below.

When I came back up on deck, the conditions had deteriorated. As we approached the mouth of the river, a strong wind was blowing right in our teeth, and a bit of chop had developed, which was breaking over the bow and drenching the decks—and soon, the cockpit—with cold spray from the 48 degree water. I passed Gere's foul-weather jacket up to him from below and he bundled up against the spray.

Despite the cold spray, the trip wasn't too unpleasant, and as we turned off the wind around Littlejohn Island, things improved a bit, with spray breaking less frequently. Still, the 20 knot sea-breeze was quite chilly and I remained proofed against the elements.

We had an uneventful ride across towards PYC, passing only two other boats, one of which was the old landing craft that is used to shuttle construction vehicles out to the islands.

Soon enough, we arrived at PYC in Falmouth and picked up the mooring. Gere had things to take care of in the afternoon, so we grabbed the launch in and headed back to Yarmouth to pick up the cars. Later I returned to the boat to rough-tune the rig, put the boom on and neaten up a bit. Despite the less-than-perfect weather, it sure was nice to have the new season underway!