Old Saybrook 41:17N 72:21W
Millybrown
Mark Hillmann
Thu 30 Oct 2008 14:56
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The forecast was another day of 20 to 30 knot winds
but no rain and from astern, so off we went.
With a steady force 6 blowing the wind vane coped
well with a full genoa but no main. In New England the wind is
never steady. Sailing up on the west coast of the UK, these are what
I think of as east winds, full of holes and gusts. Even on a day as steady as any, there were 33 knot gusts coming through,
usually after the wind had dropped enough to persuade me to hoist the
main.
When the waves start coming past the
windows, you just have to go out and drop the
main again. At least the wind vane coped and the seas were never too
serious.
 Sun and cloud all day, with the tide behind
us in the afternoon the gps held 9 knots and occasionally got up to 10.
Looking at these seas you cannot see why. There was really only 1.5 knots
of tide.
This is a tug towing a barge. Perfectly
obvious in daylight, but against a background of dense city lights much more
difficult to see. Fortunately these tugs all have AIS transmitters so the
AIS radar shows them. In the UK the ferries
have transmitters too, but not here. Why not?
After a vigorous day it grows dark and I
start to worry about an unknown harbour at low tide, in an area where
deep water in the middle of Long Island Sound is only 30m. Too risky to
try Guilford which we used on the way south.
 Saybrook looked all right, a deep river and a
marina. I followed a little ferry into the buoyed and dredged channel, but
he was still doing 20 knots and soon disappeared. Up to a line of
timber piles, is this really a fishing boat harbour?
Into the unlit marina, still timber
piles but looking smarter now. My hand lamp showed proper pontoons.
There was shelter too, mooring singlehanded in the dark, in 25 knots of
wind would have been tricky but we drifted gently into this berth.
Going ashore the marina was part of a posh
hotel complex, so a lobster sandwich and beer in the bar finished the day.
Hot showers and coffee provided while I blog, made it very civilised.
Different to bobbing on a mooring.
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