Barbara Garland, editor
Contributions by Tony Di Stefano and Chip Hindes
pictures by Steve and Karen Silvia
As I start this article, I'm going to combine thoughts of several people. This was a trip taken by 4 NE-TS boats. Vice Commodore Ed Goodhue with crew Don Huff on his San Juan sailed out of Pocassett on the Cape. They met the group who launched in Wareham as they were going through the canal. Treasurer Tony Di Stefano and Mona came over from NY on Friday night to sail his Mac 26S. They stayed with Steve and Karen Silvia, who live in Wareham. Chip and Janice Hindes, new NE-TS members who live near Albany NY, joined the group after seeing the "Sail together Board" posting on the member only page. Steve & Karen and Chip & Janice both sail Mac 26X's. Chip writes
Janice and I had been discussing a trip to the
Cape since we first got our Mac in Sep '00, and this was a great opportunity
to try it out on short notice with minimum planning. Thanks to Steve Smith
for pointing it out to us, and to Steve and Karen Silvia for their advice
and for shepherding us along.
First of all, those of you who know Tony, understand that sailing comes first. So when he had problems with the boat the week before, some of them were fixed - others weren't quite done. He wrote
"As usual neglect and poor repair and maintenance caused the Beep to have a problem with the mast raising system, I had to rebuild it. When the problem occurred it also damaged the mast cleat and the spreader. When we left home most repairs were made as the Beep ie Tony makes repairs as needed on site.
Arriving at the Steve & Karen's and trying to park brought out that fact that the reverse brake on the trailer must be disabled when backing up. But that will get done after this trip. After a great dinner at the Gateway (great chowder) and restful sleep at Steve & Karen's a 5am wake up was early. Steve, as usual, just could not let the broken spreader go, Duct tape would have done the job but no, he had to bring out the tools. The repair was better than new.
After a stop for coffee we met Chip & Janice at the ramp in Wareham and all went well till the motor on the Beep would not start(actual maintenance was preformed but the idle was not returned to low). The dink placed on the roof of the car stayed there after the launch and the cabin wenches were sent to retrieve it from the roof of the car in the parking area to the water as it should have been (well almost as they got it to the top of the ramp and the captains had to finish the job).
On the way to the Cape Cod Canal Chip decided to find the only rock with his prop but not to much damage.
I better insert in here Chip's comments about the rock
For all, the "only rock in
the Wareham river" which I hit is, I believe at N41d42.128m, W70d41.484m.
It is about 200 yards ENE of red buoy number 2. There are actually four
rocks on the chartplotter in that vicinity and I'm not 100% sure that's the
correct one, I didn't specifically mark it when I hit it. You will note it
is clearly outside the marked channel. We learned the hard way that despite
extensive personal experience to the contrary from one of us who shall
remain nameless, high tide doesn't save you from that one and it's best to
stay in the marked channel. Interestingly, if I had followed the leader
directly, I probably would have missed it; but when I saw that we were
going directly through the rock cluster as it appeared on my chartplotter, I
figured our leader wasn't paying attention and had already started a turn to
starboard to head back toward the channel. I wasn't 30 feet to the right of
his track when I hit the rock.
Back to Tony's tale
- The ride thru the canal was great, little traffic, 7 to 8 knots and sun and blue sky.
Chip and Steve had a different trip back. Here is Chip's side of the story
Steve and I didn't motor all the way back from P-town. In fact we shut down
the motors and beat to windward for about two hours. I tried to pass Steve
to leeward, but he blanketed me and I couldn't get past. So I tried passing
to windward but he was able to point slightly higher than I and I couldn't
get past that way either. So I fell off a good ways to leeward and was able
to stay even but not get ahead. I saw better winds to windward and had just
tacked behind Steve to take advantage, but before I could tack back to try
to pass again, the winds pretty much died and it was time to fire the motors
and hurry to the canal so we could pass through with the current. Of course
it wasn't a race :-) but it seemed to me our boats were quite evenly
matched
.
Back to Tony and the trip through the canal.
The ride thru the canal going back was a trip. It was like a flume ride at a park. At times half the boat was out of the water and waves would break over the bow, all this at 9.5 plus
knots. It sure was fun but it seemed to take forever to get back to the ramp. The canal was fun but next time I'll launch from the power plant at the north end. Per Mona it was a great trip with great people but we should have gone directly to P-town and skipped Wellfleet.
Maybe next time
Hopefully some of you other people out there will try getting a group together and doing an impromptu rendezvous.