Notes on a Maine cruise

[Slim]

Hey Day Sailors! It’s been a long time since I have checked in, but I am heading out today on my fourth annual weeklong Maine island cruise, and thought folks might want to hear about it and ruminate on the ups and downs of the Daysailer as a camp cruising boat! I have been sailing my O’Day DS1 # 2077 for a few years now, mostly on 2 to 10 day voyages. She’s pretty well rigged up as far as I’m concerned for cruising, sleeping, living, eating aboard, rigged to handle almost any sort of weather, and as you all know, a joy to sail!
I left Blue Hill harbor today around noon under light and fluky southerly winds. The route out to the islands is south so there was a lot of tacking back-and-forth. OK by me, as it’s my first sail of the season and it was a good chance to make sure everything was working smoothly on the boat, and in my head. So far so good, I made it about 12nm and anchored for the night off of the southeast end of Long Island. Predicted thunderstorms petered out before they hit us and hopefully this light northerly breeze now will keep the mosquitoes off as the sun sets!

[Slim]

Funny story, as I was leaving the mouth of blue Hill harbor, got talking to a couple of folks in their moored sailboat cleaning and prepping for a race tomorrow. “Look out ahead!“ They said. “Rocks! How much do you draw?“
“Oh she’s got a centerboard.“ I said. “No worries!“
I drifted out of talking distance and they went about their business. I sat back to enjoy the view. A few minutes later, all of a sudden the rocks appeared below and the centerboard was grinding, and the rudder kicked up! I almost thought I was gonna have to jump out and push her off the rocks!
Lesson learned, don’t get overconfident just because you have the draft of a canoe! Luckily the folks I was talking to were distracted and didn’t hear the grinding!
Here’s a couple of pictures from today:

[GreenLake]

Nice. What's in the yellow bags? Flotation or gear?

[AlanH]

Perfect, just the sort of thing want to do.

[Slim]

I would just like to appreciate how just about everybody that you run into when you’re out in your Daysailer recognizes your boat and has a story about one… In the last 24 hours I’ve had Daysailer conversations with at least three different people in my travels The dock boy whose family had one growing up, the guy sitting on a dock who’s mooring I borrowed while I was setting up to leave Bucks Harbor, a fellow passing by in a Whaler who remarked, “I never knew you could row a Daysailer!“ I replied, “you can row anything if you got the right oars!” And he went on to mutter something about milking a bull just cause it’s got nipples…
Anyhow, no wonder about the widespread fame of the Daysailer. Over the last 48 hours, she has handled all sorts of conditions with ease and confidence and I wish I could truthfully say that I slept in comfort! But I actually did sleep OK, and was not much bothered by mosquitoes, thanks to my Cuddy screen, which only requires knocking off the last few that sneak in before the screen I’d set up.
Speaking of set up, here’s a picture of my cuddy top with control lines from left to right:


Jib downhaul
Jib halyard
Topping lift
Main Halyard

That’s it, above I think you can see the 8:1 boom vang, simple gooseneck downhaul to a cleat, and the mast cleat on the port side is a continuous flag halyard. I don’t run a Spinnaker, Cunningham, Barber haulers, anything else. Just seems like too many more lines and complication for laid-back cruising…


The yellow things are flotation port and starboard and towards the middle is a big yellow dry bag full of gear…

[RaleighRancher]

Thanks for the updates! Making me impatient for my own fall cruise!

[Hesedguy]

What's your setup for sleeping aboard? Sounds like you're in the cuddy somehow?

[Slim]

Sorry, technical difficulties have prevented me from checking in along the way. Here is a recap of days one through four:

Day 1
Left Blue Hill Harbor heading south under calm conditions. My friend Nikolai who lives in blue Hill was there to see me off and film/photograph the event. We’ll see what comes of it! Rode the outgoing tide into open waters, the wind picked up a little bit and I was really sailing! First time this year believe it or not. Made it to a little protected cove on the southeast end of Long Island. Great place to anchor for the night and surprisingly, no mosquitoes!

Day2
Goal was to head up into Eggemoggin reach heading north west for the Deer Isle bridge. Possibility of Nikolai meeting me at the bridge for more photos. Wind started late and I didn’t know if that was even a realistic destination. But they picked up to where I put a reef in and despite headwinds and a contrary tide, I eventually found myself crossing under the awe inspiring span of the suspension bridge that crosses onto Deer Isle. Nikolai didn’t make it. Not far past that, to the north is Buck’s Harbor where my uncle Skip was going to be spending the night in his power boat on a mooring. The winds died just outside the harbor and I snuck in under or just as the sun was going down. some neighbors in big cruisers. As usual I found in anchorage in the backest backwater with still a good 3 feet at low tide.

Day 3
Luxury breakfast with my uncle on the poop deck of his motor cruiser first thing, and then beating up wind again for Pickering Island, my days destination. Forecast was for gusts into the 20s. Luckily Pickering was only about 5 miles to windward. it was about a two and a half hour beat with the first reef in and considering the second. But I held on, as I was actually making fairly good headway, and was soon under Pickering’s lee. I had permission from the owner of the island to explore on shore, so I spent the next 24 hours poking around. It’s a big island with many bays and bar islands, remnants of an old homestead, and bird life of all descriptions.

Day 4
Calm morning at Pickering so I circumnavigated the island under oar, poking into all the coves inaccessible by land. Then the usual southwest wind started to pipe up and I headed back to sea. Soon there were whitecaps to windward so it was a reef and trudge on! Finally ran out of day at Sheep Island off the NW end of North Haven.