Cruising New England for a Month – 2025

We still have to get back into the house one more time. So the plan was just a short hop to Jamestown to anchor at Potter and then over to Newport for a Reserved Mooring on the 30th. This give us a chance to try out our brand new windlass right at the start of the trip. Thumbs up on that.

We both did a bit of work in the morning from Potter Cove and Linda hooked up with some folks from her ocean swimming group for a swim around the cove. About 1400, we sailed home – not the boat’s home but our home: Newport. We had to get ashore and do a few more logistics with the house to get it ready for renters coming in and we also had a few todos to take care of around town. As we headed into shore, we could see some fog rolling in. By the time we got back to the boat, it looked like this

We departed Newport at about 1200 with the plan to motor-sail out of Narragansett Bay and tuck into Third Beach for the night. And then leave at 0500 for Cuttyhunk next morning (to arrive before work). We expected the sound to be very intense with building winds and four foot seas. Once we got out there, we got the boat sailing beautifully with a reefed main and Jib. For about the fifth time, we evaluated if we should just continue on to Cuttyhunk directly. This time, the answer was yes. This is the essence of no-itin sailing. With the holiday weekend approaching, we played it safe and reserved an “outside” mooring in cuttyhunk.

The sailing was some of the best buzzards bay sailing we’ve ever had. It was a bit lumpy (as usual) but winds were constantly between 15 and 20 knots and just behind the beam. We had full main and jib and were doing mostly high-6s to mid-7s in speed over ground. We got to Cuttyhunk fast.

There was a good ol’ fashioned New England squall with winds hitting high 30s and turning us toward the north-northwest. That exposed the whole anchorage to a long fetch from the sound and things were a bit exciting for a while. We put out another 20 feet of chain just in case and monitored or swing carefully.

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!

During the storm, we monitored VHF16. I heard those words from a remarkably calm skipper as his boat lost power and was pushed aground nearby. So nearby in fact that we could see him. The Coast Guard sent a vessel but it had too deep of a draft to get in and help. Finally it was the Raw Bar Boat that came to the rescue! (they are also a Tow-Boat US contractor).

After that excitement, we enjoyed three nights of relative calm at anchor. Got lots of swimming, kayaking and paddleboarding.

In yet another enroute destination change, the original plan was to sail only as far as Sagamore Beach on the north side of the canal and anchor for the night. We had to depart Cuttyhunk fairly late in the morning to wait for wind so we didn’t think we could make ptown by sunset (and we were picking up an unfamiliar mooring).

On the way up the bay, we started doing some what-if calculations on timing and realized that we could probably just make it to Provincetown before sunset (20:15). We deferred that final decision until we left the canal and could evaluate conditions in Mass Bay. We decided to go for it. It would mean needing an average speed around 6kts. It was more straight downwind sailing like most of the day already and we put out all three sails to maximize speed. At first we were in the 7s, but the wind started to soften a bit and we found ourselves in the low 5s. So – yuk- we motorsailed for a good chunk of the 20 miles across the bay and picked up our mooring at about 20:05.

Photos from the passage to Provincetown. Entering the Cape Cod Canal, sailing across Mass Bay and arriving in Provincetown

Leaving Provincetown in the rain

After a couple of very windy nights on a mooring in a mostly empty mooring field, it was finally time to leave ptown. The system that caused all those high winds left some rainy and slightly confused weather in its wake. The result of which is that there may be a nice stretch of days with wind NOT out of the typical southwest. We decided not to squander that and make some progress back toward the Canal and Buzzards Bay. The only downside is that it was forecast to be pouring rain for this leg.

Alarm!

One thing I left out about the arrival to ptown a few days ago (because I didn’t want to jinx us) is that as soon as we got into the mooring field, we had an engine alarm sound. It happened a few times and lasted only a second each time. The display showed a non-descript exclamation point in a triangle icon with no other text. Looking at the manual, this is a System Fault which means:

System failure

The “system fault” symbol is displayed when there is a short circuit or cable break. The symbol shows if the ignition is left on, refer to Engine Shutdown page24.• Check to see if there are any chafed wires or wires with loose connections.• Please contact a Volvo Penta workshop if the fault remains

That’s about has helpful as it sounds. The engine continued to run and sound perfectly normal during these events. Over the time in ptown, I contacted some Volvo Diesel expertise and even consulted chatgpt. The main concern is having a sudden engine failure in the Cape Cod Canal or other tricky spots (or being unable to start the engine when approaching a harbor). We totally emptied the aft cabin and cockpit locker to gain full access to the engine compartment to do wiring inspection. Everything was tight, secure, clean and generally looking fine. Later, we got advice to check grounds especially – so I went back in again and checked all ground busses and the main engine block ground. Again – tight, clean, secure.

Testing – so we ran the engine for a bit (we were low on hot water and electrons anyway) and there were no alarms. Eventually when we left ptown, we had no issues motoring out of the moo

Finally, we were going to be on a dock which was welcome after the wet day we had sailing out of provincetown. Safe Harbor, Onset only had availability for us on the 12th so we planned on just anchoring the first night and moving to our slip. Fortunately, the weather was so crappy that they were nice enough to let us land on the fuel dock the first night. We’re safe harbor members, so the dockage was free here.

Enjoying Onset

It wasn’t all work and battery charging. We got around the bay to chill a bit too. Onset bay is a really beautiful cove (like our home port in Wickford).

Enjoying Onset

It wasn’t all work and battery charging. We got around the bay to chill a bit too. Onset bay is a really beautiful cove (like our home port in Wickford).

The bay at Onset is beautiful with great swimming, Paddling and even a dock-and-dine opportunity in town

The Tohatsu Outboard is going to go live on a nice farm

Our 11 year old Tohatsu outboard on the dinghy has lived well past its prime. Linda rebuilt it a couple of years ago at an IRYS Workshop and that got us a bit more time. While we were at a boatyard, we wondered about the possibility of getting a new Yamaha outboard and finally retiring the Tohatsu. Safe Harbor Staff made a few calls and within an hour we were borrowing the Safe Harbor Onset truck and driving 3 miles to Atlantic Boats to pick up our new F6. The best part is that the tohatsu is not getting scrapped. One of the equipment operators at Safe Harbor wanted it for his clamming boat. He said “you’ve made my kids so happy” – perfect.

Once again, we examined the wind and changed our mind enroute. We could make it all the way to Cuttyhunk. We still had this lovely window of NON-SW wind in buzzards bay and wanted to take advantage of it.

This time, Cuttyhunk was just a quick stopover so we didn’t do the whole “scene” with the raw bar boat and all that. We did swim, paddle and chill. It was off to Block the next day for another stopover on the way to Mystic. The non-SW wind is still holding!

The next day, was a 35 mile sail to Block Island. We left pretty early to catch some wind and managed to sail most of the way there. Unfortunately, the wind softened and the last three hours were under power. Block Island was full and there were no moorings available. Luckily, a fellow Blue Water Sailing Club boat Pax was there and allowed us to raft up with them..

Mystic was to be a “Utility Stop”. It’s a Safe Harbor marina so we were able to get a free slip. We would be mostly working while there, so it was nice to be plugged in and not eating up starlink capacity. The marina is a few miles up the river just below the Amtrak Swing bridge (which is very impressive). We were a short dinghy ride to town and managed to make a few trips up the river. Friends and Family came by to visit and hang. They even used the marina pool.

It was hot in Mystic. We were plugged in with AC, but (apart from the pool), there was no good place to swim in the river. It’s great to have these free nights at Safe Harbor marinas, but I’d probably skip this particular one next time. If you’re going to up the river, go all the way to the Mystic Shipyard and Museum area. We’ve done that before and it’s really cool.

After sitting on the dock in Mystic, we were craving a quiet anchorage and there is an ideal one just south of Mystic at Fishers Island. Fishers has two main harbors: the primary one to the west and the overflow harbor to the east. They got this wrong. The East Harbor is by far our favorite. You can’t get ashore from there but that’s the whole idea. We had to leave Mystic very early to get settled in Fishers before our work days started. It was really foggy.

Carefully motoring down the Mystic River in very dense fog.

We got settled in to Fishers and started our day jobs while the fog lifted revealing a gorgeous clear day with beautiful scenery.

Wind was forecasted to shift about 120 degrees to the NW overnight which is not a great direction for Fishers. We tucked in to the west corner of the anchorage as far as we could so that some rocks to the Northwest of us would help smooth things out. We also set alarms for midnight and 1am to check how we were holding as we swung on the anchor.

Midnight Anchor Watch: We’ve swung to 270. And we’re at about 3 o’clock on the “arc” of our anchor. We still had about another 45 degrees to go.

No work today! And we had about 35 miles to get back to Newport. Wind was forecasted to be best very early do we were up and off the mooring at 5AM. We found ourselves sailing due east into the sunrise on an incredible beam reach. The wind held up all the way into Newport and it was one of the best sailing legs of the whole trip. At one point, we were even compelled to reef the main for a while. Total engine hours for this leg : ~10 minutes!

Extended Stay in Newport

We intended to stay just two nights (one night on an oldport mooring and the next on a friend’s private mooring). But then I heard from a childhood friend who was traveling through the area and wanted to meet for lunch in Newport. So back to oldport again for a third night. There are worst places to be trapped.

We considered sailing up to Bristol for our last night out since there would be a north wind and that harbor would be very smooth, but we decided instead to just grab a mooring inside the breakwater in our home cove in Wickford.

We had an amazing upwind sail for this final leg. Winds were moderate between 12 and 15kts and it was actually fun to beat our way back home.

Nice Upwind Sail from Newport to Wickford Cove

The North Kingstown (wickford) moorings are the best deal in New England. Free to grab for a day stop and only $35 (in 2025) for an overnight. Wakes in this harbor are not a problem – the power boaters are very compliant with speed here. We had a lovely dinner and sunset for the last night aboard.