Lilli Mae - Rides Again
Lilli Mae
Linton
Sun 12 May 2024 03:44
Hi Everyone, I hope you are all well. It has been a while since we last reported. A lot has happened in our lives since then. Lilli Mae has collected a few new followers and so we welcome them. Sadly we have some good friends since. Of course if anyone has had enough then please let me know. We arrived in Stratford, CT last June (2023). We have been in Connecticut since the beginning of April this year getting ourselves and Lilli Mae prepared for the journey back to the Mediterranean. The idea is to be in the Barcelona area by the end of September. In between now and then we plan to cross the Atlantic from the US, stopping in Bermuda, The Azores and Lagos in the Algarve, Portugal. Our aim is to depart Bermuda with ARC and arrive in Lagos around mid-June.  At this moment (Saturday 11th @ 1839 EST) we are anchored New York, New York. But we will tell a bit more about that a little later.  Lilli Mae has been in the Safe Harbor Marina, Stratford, CT since we arrived there around 13th June 2023. She and we have been taken care of by a great team of people there led by Manager, Bazil Grabovsky (far left below). Our thanks to the whole Stratford Safe Harbor team. We have had our ups and downs in getting her ready but the team made our experience with them great. Thanks guys. We need to make a special mention to Mark Butler (MCB Marine, centre second row, white shirt with collar) for all of his help and support. Thanks Mark. And as always to our special crew member Rick (front, third from left) We got Lilli Mae in the water on the 15th April. But it wasn’t until 8th May we finally got her out on a proper sea trial. After a night anchored across at Port Jefferson, Long Island we went sailing! Not much wind but enough to test the boat and Lilli Mae's spinnaker that had had some repairs over the winter. Andrew (Linton) obliged with drone pictures.  We said our final goodbyes to Safe Harbor yesterday (Friday 10th) heading for NYC with a planned stop in Port Washington.  After a few hours we hoisted the spinnaker and we were making between 9-10 knots in about 15 knots of wind from the east. And then just between Norwalk and Stamford our treasured spinnaker exploded as the sail material ripped and the sail shredded. Our spinnaker is now a “dead spinnaker”. We have gathered it up and will deal with the debris in Bermuda. We had a pleasant stop in Port Washington, Long Island (last night) once we had gathered ourselves after the spinnaker excitement. We lifted our anchor at about 1.15 PM today and safely navigated our way through the East River to Liberty Island thanks to Rick’s careful planning of tide and current. We are at pretty much the same spot we anchored last year. This time we have a drone pilot on board and so we took the opportunity for some cool shots of Lilli Mae “in the city”.  Currently Lilli Mae has 6 crew aboard.  Tomorrow (Sunday 12th May) we will drop Emily and Andrew off at North Cove Marina, Manhattan and they will head back to the UK on Monday. Mike, Rick, Joan and I are heading to Bermuda. Things are a little complicated with the weather. Our current idea is to head south to Virgina and then sit out a passing low pressure system which could make the journey uncomfortable.  We will check the weather again tomorrow to make our final route. Our tracker is still at https://share.garmin.com/LilliMae if you want to follow us. Small email messages can be received at lilli_mae {CHANGE TO AT} mailasail {DOT} com whilst we are at sea. If we want to recap any of our previous stories then our blog is http://blog.mailasail.com/lilli_mae Thanks again for your support and enthusiasm. We will keep you updated on progress over the next few weeks. All the best from the Crew aboard Lilli Mae. |