Setting Sail
Memories of sails past
Sitting here in the no-man’s-land of winter, I’m alternating between looking back at past sailing adventures and forward to whatever awaits me this coming year. My journey down the East Coast from Marblehead, Massachusetts, to Florida last fall was a devil’s brew of gales, boat breakages, unrelenting headwinds, near-disasters and general frustration that left me quite disaffected with the notion of cruising under sail.
Since then, though, I’ve found the path to psychological sailing salvation lay in kicking back with a rum drink and recollecting some of the glorious daysails, boat races and cruising passages I’ve been fortunate to enjoy over the years. The deeper I dug in the memory banks, the more episodes bubbled to the surface. A fast run out of the Strait of Gibraltar under a full moon, wing-and-wing before a 25-knot westerly, reeling off 50 miles in a six-hour watch; a lazy all-day drift along the coast of Cornwall under spinnaker, everyone but the helmswoman dozing in the warm sun; a summer boat review in Sweden where we trimmed a Najad 400 to steer itself to windward for several hours, answering to every small change in the wind coming off the islands; an eight-hour reach down the Windward islands on a charter boat, surging along at 8 and 9 knots on a perfect Caribbean day; taking the wheel of a Whitbread Maxi under full sail in a building breeze.
The more I thought about it, the more memories came flooding back, and not all of them relating to exotic places or boats: so many summer afternoon sails I can no longer separate them in my mind, just a mŽlange of warm winds, sparkling waters and beautiful coastlines; years of Wednesday night races in that indescribable late summer New England light; quiet, otherworldly nights at anchor (and a few exciting ones).
I think we all have one sail that sticks in our mind above all others, though. Mine was a singlehanded journey from Annapolis to Marblehead a few years ago, one of those rare voyages where all your plans come together. I carried the tide through the C&D canal and then had a wonderful night sail down Delaware Bay, reaching down the edge of the channel in a warm southwesterly with a blood-orange full moon rising on the port bow, counting the markers off one by one until daybreak. The wind went a little more southerly as I was making the turn at Cape May, so I poled the genoa out to starboard and hauled the boom out to port; for the next 180 miles, until I was approaching Block Island, I ran goose-winged at a relaxed 5 knots, reclining on a bean bag in the cockpit while the autopilot steered and the AIS kept an eye out for invisible ships. The weather was perfect, not a cloud in the sky, the sea was flat and the wind never wavered. I set my phone to wake me and napped solidly for 30 minutes at a time. At night, hoping to avoid messing with the sail setup, I hailed the fishing boats zipping around me to make sure we wouldn’t get in each other’s way. I never touched a sheet in close to 36 hours.
It was as close to a perfect coastal passage as I’ve achieved; of course, it ended in spectacular and all too familiar fashion, in pitch darkness and driving rain when the wind got up to 25 knots as I was entering the marina at the head of the Cape Cod Canal.
But until now, I’d almost forgotten that part. Damn.