Nantucket Adventures: Welcome to New England Weather

Below are the predictions I made on Sunday evening for the cruise back to Hingham on Monday.  Let's see how the day played out.

The waterway salong our route

Tomorrow we retrace our steps and cruise back to Hingham.  The weather looks OK enough with diminishing winds and waves on Nantucket Sound at 2 to 3 feet.  With a 7:00 AM departure we will cover the first 44 nautical miles in about six hours and arrive at the Cape Cod Canal at 1:00 PM as the flood tide begins giving us, at worst, a neutral current through the canal. Then 7 NM through the canal and then 44 more NM to Hingham. We should be pulling into our slip at 7:00 PM.

We awoke to moderate rain with winds out of the northeast at 15 with gusts to 20.  So much for diminishing winds.

The next prediction was for a 7:00 AM departure with 2 to 3 foot seas on Nantucket Sound.  Dead on. The "crew" was on top on things and we departed the slip at 6:59.  The waves were in fact 2 to 3 with an occasional four.

Nantucket Sound and the islands

Our initial course had us heading northeast which gave us a head sea for the first hour, the 63's least favorite point of sail.  However, three to fours are not a problem.  We need to get over 6 feet before it starts to become uncomfortable. After a hour we turned to a northwest heading placing the seas squarely on the beam , which allowed the stabilizers to give us a comfortable ride.

That said, we did have a minor incident.  As we headed northeast we heard a crash, which we quickly found our was the bow flag pole bouncing down the pilot house stairs.  I forgot to mount the bow pennant, which I have historically stored on a shelf along the stair to the flybridge (and which I will not do going forward).

Three stair were damaged.  Below is a photo of the worst.  Later in the afternoon as we cruised north on Massachusetts Bay I contacted a furniture refinisher, sent them photos, got and estimate and contracted to "make the problem go away" by Saturday at 2:00 PM.  $248 thank you!

The flag pole chipped the teak stair edge

The sun came out as we headed north on Buzzards Bay and the temperature climbed to 68 degrees.

The next prediction placed us at the west (south) end of the Cape Cod Canal at 1:00 PM.  We were helped by a favorable current through Woods Hole that had us hitting a top speed of 12.6 knots. As a result, we were 40 minutes early but still "on time" to catch a favorable flood tide current (i.e., heading northeast).  Our average speed through the canal was 10.2 knots.  At 1500 RPM we cruise at 8.9 knots.  Thus the flood tide gave us a 1.3 knot push.  We covered the 7 nautical miles in 40 minutes and exited the canal into Cape Cod Bay at 1:00 PM.

The next prediction had us covering 44 nautical miles on Cape Cod and Massachusetts Bays and arriving in Hingham at 7:00 PM.  We experienced neutral to favorable currents as we headed north along with light winds.  As a result we arrived in Hingham at 6:09 PM (and were docked by 6:12 PM.

Back to the "light winds."  We literally entered another weather zone after exiting the canal.  The waves were less than a foot with light winds out of the north northeast and the temperature dropped 7 degrees.  With air temperature at 61 degrees and water temperature about the same and light winds we had the perfect conditions for fog and that's exactly what we got.

Fog as we head north on Cape Cod Bay

At 2:43 PM we were off Plymouth Light with visibility of 1/4 mile.  By 4:15 we were off Situate.  Our course took us very close to the Situate open water buoy.  We saw the buoy and noted that we had visibility of 600 feet.

Our course took us very close to Plymouth Light

The next major landmark was Minots Light off Cohasset.  Minots marks a rocky area between it and the coast.  However, you can come very close to Minots on the east side.  We barely saw it when the GPS indicated a distance of 700 feet.  Check out the photo below.

Minots viewed from shore on a clear day

Look hard (like we did) and you can see Minots Light in the fog.  Distance: 700 feet.

As we continued northwest toward Point Allerton (Hull Mass) at the entrance to Nantasket Roads (Boston Light) the fog began to lift.  I recorded 1/3rd of a mile at Harding's Ledge and over a mile as we turned southwest into Nantasket Roads at Boston Light (on Little Brewster Island).  By the time we hit Hull Gut we has 3 to 5 mile visibility.

We're about a mile away from Boston Light

When we docked at our slip in Hingham Shipyard Marinas the temperature was 72 degrees with clear skies.

Statistics:

Total Distance: 99.5 nautical miles
Average RPM: 1,500 (8.9 knots)
Fuel Used: 95.7 gallons
Efficiency: 1.04 GPM (Gallons Per Mile)
Time Enroute: 11 hours and 11 minutes
Total Cost of Dockage: $1,307

Cruising the 63 is an absolute pleasure, regardless of the weather.  We spent our day running from the pilothouse in heated or air conditioned comfort.

Hope you enjoyed this series.

Written by Les.

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