Four M15 owners just returned from another great cruise.
This one was only 40 miles from Manhattan on Great South Bay. I understand
that it is difficult to find a launching site in NY that lets you park
overnight, but Abbey Gura lives in the area and hosted the event through his
yacht club. Because of the limited facilities we intentionally kept the group
small.
We kicked off the Cruise on Monday with a great New England lobster boil, with
mussels over pasta. A delicious way to start before living on one pot meals for
the rest of the week :-)
We took off NE up the bay on Tuesday with an increasingly strong cold front
from the W - NW. Early on I attempted to launch my spinnaker a couple of times
and finnaly got it up. I was able to have a nice spinnaker run for about 40
minutes before the strong N wind kicked in and I got close to a broach with the
big chute up. It takes a while to get the spinnaker down while single handing.
The wind then settled in from the WNW and peaked at 18 kts with gusts to 22
while we were sailing - a great ride. We spend the night well protected from
the strong NW winds in the Connetquot River next to a very pretty arboretum.
On Wednesday the N winds were much lighter so we sailed South to Sailors Haven
( exposed to North winds). The Sea breeze settled in from the SW so we blew up
the kayaks and headed to shore for a swim and a walk on the ocean side beach.
We also hiked a long board walk trail though the barrier beach canopy - very
nice.
The forecast for the night was for the wind to shift back to the WNW at 5 kts.
We decided to stay the night even though it was exposed to any wind without a
South component. The winds were calm until about 11PM when the winds came up
at 5 -10 kts from the WNW. We had to break up the raft up as the waves were
knocking us around a bit much. Didn't get much sleep that night.
On Thursday we motored farther NE up the Bay to Watch Hill (another delightful
location) and arrived just as the SW sea breeze was starting up. After another
Ocean side beach walk, we sailed back down the bay to Atlantique (WNW) for a
delightful sail with the sea breeze holding steady at 10 - 12 kts. It was
about a 14 nm trip with only one tack - easy to get spoiled here.
Atlantique is a popular location with lots of ferry traffic and power boats
that ran well into the night. While trying to sleep, one wake was so strong
that the roll tumbled all of my bags from the starboard side down to the port
side on top of me! Not a good night for sleeping again.
Friday found us sailing NNW, then NW with that delightful SW sea breeze at 8 -
10 kts. I managed to get in a delightful 4 nm spinnaker run in perfect
conditions.
This time the anchorage was in a beautiful cove with lots of deep water,
strongly shelving sand beachs and no houses. - Hemlock cove - behind Jones
beach. Abbey, Rick and Mike combined thier stores into a clam sauce based
pasta feast while the 4 of us stayed rafted up. I don't do clams so I had to
settle for a grilled herb and garlic chicken breast with brown rice and green
beans. I made up for the hardship by finishing off the good boxed wine.
Saturday we motored back, packed up and headed home. Everyone was wishing this
cruise could have lasted a little longer. -- Hmm, maybe this was the first
annual Fire Island Cruise.
Thanks
Doug Kelch
M15 #310
"Seas the Day"
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