2008 Summer Sailstice Rendezvous Report

[Mildred Rose]

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The Second Annual Summer SAILstice was a great success!

There were 4 boats on this rendezvous - Karamel, Spice, Zusammen, and Mildred Rose.

Even with the poor weather forecast, we decide to go for it! The heck with rain and T-storms forecast!

I arrived at the ramp, Karamel was getting set up. Parking lot was empty. Got to love rigging on a Friday morning! Mildred rose is setup pretty soon after. We launch Karamel, then us. At the dock, we are waiting for the rest of the group. I call At Ease, Harry lets us know something came up and can not come. I call Zusammen, to see where they are..they are lost near the ramp..and they blew a trailer tire earlier in the trip! At least they have a tandem trailer so they were able to limp to the ramp. Once at the ramp, NE-TS sprang into action! I got the spare trailer tire from my truck. Bill called trailer assist to change the tire..might as well as he rigs his boat..We leave Bill alone to rig his boat..walking along the beach..enjoying the nice weather. Soon enough the tire place shows up to swap the tire in no time flat! Bill finishes rigging and we are off!

motor out to Hingham bay, over to the bay behind World's End and grab a mooring (shhhh don't tell anyone!) for the night. We raft up have a nice happy hour on our M! Lots of great stories were told. Had great conversation.

We awake on Saturday morning, have some coffee..relax..check on Spice, who has to wait for the tide to come in so he can launch.. Once we know Spice is on the way, we motor out to meet them in Hingham bay, and motor through Hull Gut, into Boston Harbor.

We put the sails up..and wait.. no wind! Look around.. we are just bobbing around. I know the weather said 5-10 knts, but i figured there would be more than this. We motor out a bit further down past Hull, and the wind FINALLY picks up..nicely! Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) the wind was coming from the direction we want to go.. so it is either motor straight through..or tack..back and forth all day! We decide to sail.. 1-2 mile tacks back and forth, we (Mildred Rose) was over 20 degrees for the most part all day.. sometimes a lot more during some gusts! Was quite the sailing day!

We pass Minots lighthouse on the way to Scituate.. sailing down.. making some great time. 5-6-7kts (gps speed) not bad for an M! We motor into scituate bay. Bob, from Satuit Boat club, guides us to our moorings that we reserved. We all catch the Club Launch to the clubhouse for a quick happy hour.. We gave our LED lighted Margaretta glasses to all the boats! It was quite the hit! We took turns in the shower, as we (ast least I) needed one after a full day of sailing! After happy hour, we went out to dinner at TKO on Scituate harbor, on the deck overlooking the bay. We had a great dinner and conversation!

Walk back to the boatclub after dinner to catch the last launch back to the boats. We all slept well that night! Full day of sailing, dinner..was quite nice.

Wake up early Sunday, the weather forecast wind and rain and t-storms.. I see wet spots on the windows from inside.. damn, I think to myself, it is starting already.. it is going to be one wet ride home! I pop my head out..see fog and no rain...wheeew. I fire up the laptop and check the weather. Fog burning off, then showers in the morning, rain and t-storms in the afternoon. Nuts.. still going to be crappy.

Once everyone had their ducks in a row in the morning, we depart Scituate. Motor out into the coastal waters.. no wind.. even though the forecast said 5-10 then 10-20 knts. we motor a bit. then out of the blue.. wind! Lots of it! WOWW! put the sails up in a hurry.. I look down to see why the Genny is not looking so good.. I wound it backwards!! I hurry to the front and re-roll the genny to get it to operate correctly. Nice south wind, pushing us up the coast, past Cohasett, up to Hull making some nice speed.. heeling over 20-30 degrees here and there, almost 'washing the windows' and the genny a foot or 2 above the sea. Nice.. Hit 7.4 gps speed at a few points. Once we near Hull, the wind picks up.. here and there..getting choppy, not making good headway, motor-sail into Hull...hoping the chop and wind will be favorable on the other side.. no luck.. finally take the main down, and motor back to the ramp.

Get back to the ramp. NICE, plenty of room for us.. We dock the boats and prepare to haul out. No sooner did we get the last turn on the dock cleat, then we hear a siren and the Hingham Harbormaster making a B-line to us! telling us to clear the docks IMMEDIATELY to make room for 'all the boats' coming in to haul out because of the storm that is coming in '20 minutes'. We all look at each other.. That is our goal..to haul out! Am I missing something? The ramp (as usual on a weekend day) is jambed with other boats..So we all grab our truck keys and go get our trailers...only to wait for the ramp to clear. talk about hurry up and wait! We look at the sky.. not looknig good. I want to get the boat out and broken down FAST! FINALLY, we get 3 trailers down the ramp side by side (got to love a wide ramp!) we get the boats on and up to the parking lot.. Still looking up to the sky.. dark clouds taunting us..send a sprinkle here and there..Frigggg.. got to get this down..now! We all quickly break down.. and we glance out to the dock and bay.. and think 'where are all the boats that are pulling out that the harbormaster said were coming in?' we were the last boats out. no one came out after us! Unreal... rushed us for nothing..thank goodness nothing happened to our boats..things tend to break when we rush!

Anywhoo..after we break down, we decide to go to 'Stars' across the street for dinner and de-compress after a long weekend of sailing. Dinner was great..had a great time!

So we hope to see more boats next year for the Longest Sailing Day of the year!

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