Flicka Cruising
Sailing to Block Island?
By John Laton · page 12 · Summer 2014
Sailing to Gardiner’s Bay aboard s/y PARADOX, Photo: John Laton © 2014
friend Dave bravely took the lead as he had blazed this trail once before.
mooring or dock and with only two dock lines, docking like this posed a problem.
My mate and I looked and listened in awe as he announced that we were going to go between the lighthouse and the North Fork of Day 1- July 2, 2005 - It all started with a Long Island (Orient point) to enter Gardiner’s dream of taking our 2 seaworthy vessels Bay. I looked at the charts again found that, (Dave’s Catalina 25 and my Flicka 20) on a 10 yup, the rocks were still there from the North day Long Island/Block Island 4th of July fork out to the lighthouse. Ahhh Dave. super-cruise with stops in Gardiners Bay. I think we will go to the outside of the Saturday, July 2nd was picked for our start lighthouse. There might be just a bit more date. We knew the wind probably would be too water there and I don’t have Sea-Tows number light and to cause us to motor sail all day to be handy. Courses were quickly modified and the at Plum Gut, the narrow funnel from which trip through the narrow and violent Gut was the Atlantic fills the Sound, for slack tide. history. Now through the “Gut”, I felt like I Our batteries being charged by our motors could do anything and take my boat anywhere. were very grateful but not as much as we were Well anywhere where I did not have to try and for our tillers autohelm. This being my first back-up my Flicka. On we went to the “Orienttrip through the “Gut.” I was a bit nervous by-the-Sea” marina. A charming name that about it and read and re-read all the charts sounded so inviting and only $30! and stories about the massive standing 10’ waves. Violent riptides and yes, even sea As I entered the walled marina I saw why it monsters! My mate kept a close eye out for the was only $30. All power boats and all slung by sea monsters while I read the charts. My lines on four poles. Having only been on a
David, an ol’ hand at this medieval way of docking, was already in and waiting to assist me in this tight parking lot. Oh joy as I scrambled below for any form of rope or rope product. My spare anchor line looked back at me as if to say “don’t even think about it!”
A chronicle of 2 couples long awaited and well planned vacation cruise in and around Long Island Sound, Gardiners Bay and destination Block Island (well maybe).
After twenty minutes of pulling and pushing from pole to pole, and much to the delight of the patrons eating lunch at the dock restaurant overlooking the basin, we were tied up. I was so embarrassed at my four pole docking skills and lack of extra lines that I sheepishly lowered our club “burgee” and then told the staff my name was “Rick” no last name, just Rick. Day 2- Surprisingly, day two went off without a hitch. A great sail on Gardiners Bay and a picture perfect anchor at Coecles Harbor. Dinner aboard David’s Summer Slopes brought out his secret recipe spare ribs. Ahhhhh, life was good!! Flicka Friends F
Day 3 - Morning brought the four of us taking our two “dinks” into a nearby Marina. Disguised as “real paying guests”, we brazenly partook of all the facility had to offer. A little bravado goes a long way, even the “guests” free ride to the Greenport ferry was taken advantage of. Now we felt like real pirates! Little did we know that fate was to step in very soon and even things out big-time. By 4:00 pm we were back from our pillaging and down below on my Flicka, Paradox, getting ready for hosting our friends for dinner. Raised voices topside caught our attention. Could that be David shouting? Popping our heads out we found that yes, it was David and he was directing a scene out of ninety-nine famous anchoring mistakes. It seems a three story forty-five foot floating condo of a “yacht” had drifted its anchor rode across David’s rudder and threatened to tear it lose.
Sailing to Gardiner’s Bay aboard s/y PARADOX, Photo: John Laton © 2014
To make matters worse, this huge vessel was “manned” by a lone confused and not very agile older woman. Her boat was dragging fast and Dave was yelling to start her engine. She instead began the long decent climbing down the three stories to toy with the windless at the bow. More shouts from David and she slowly ascended back up to third floor control room and did somehow manage to start the engine. Great work Dave, you got her to start the engine. Evidently it was “caution to the wind” as she backed away from David’s boat and right over my anchor line wrapping it up around her many props. She now shuts off her engines, descends the staircase, and calmly looks back at me and said “I would be open to any suggestions you might have as to how we may resolve this.” I just stood there on my bow with boat hook in hand poised like a Roman gladiator and just shook my head. After about twenty minutes of pulling and tugging, madam’s husband arrives in his “launch” from an afternoon of clamming. Being the yachtsman that he was, and in true Lloyd Bridges style, he slaps on mask, fins and knife, down he goes. No doubt in my mind now. I say “this guy has done this many times before.” “Here are your lines. “I had to cut it” he announces and hands me the 2 pieces of rope like I’m supposed to be eternally grateful! Now what knot was it that can join an anchor line? I told him I was amazed at how accurate his wife was with the boat at cutting a 180’ line at exactly 90’. I’m convinced the previous owner of my boat ran into this guy before because there was another full 200’ of anchor rode down below and a spare anchor to boot!
Into Clinton Harbor in confused seas and a confused captain with a cruising guide. Photo: John Laton © 2014
My very expensive CQR anchor was saved and new rode attached. Life was good again. Well 13 F
for only about ten minutes. David announces, after moving his boat a safe distance away from the yachtsman and his wife, that his old outboard engine was not pumping water and was overheating. Dave, It’s the 4th of July and your engine decides to go out? Dinner aboard the Flicka that evening was filled with good steaks and a heaping portion of the day’s bad luck. Day 4 - Early morning saw my Flicka towing Dave’s boat to the ‘pirated’ marina and suddenly we are both now paying guests of said Marina. David drops off his engine. One day and $450.00 later (he thought a $75.00 impeller job) we are ready to rock and roll! Day 5 - We are off to a short sail to 3 Mile Harbor and an overnight anchor. We decide in the morning to cut our planned trip short and give up the final destination of Block Island since a tropical storm was heading up the coast. At anchor about 10:00 PM, a slight banging is heard aboard my Flicka and an investigation showed the once calm winds had picked up quite a bit and the tiller needed to be lashed. While doing this I noticed the 40’ sailboat that was anchored 50 feet behind us was now a few feet off my port. We are dragging in 20-25 knot winds and our anchor evidently had became caught under the large chain anchor rode of the forty footer. My mate alerted, engine started, fenders and boat hook out. The way this trip is going, I should just leave the damn boat hook on deck.
Sunset in Coecles Harbor. Photo: John Laton © 2014
It’s a very dark and an unfamiliar anchorage but I try to power up and around the caught anchor. Every angle tried, no luck. It won’t budge. There is no one aboard the forty footer. Not wanting to cut the very expensive CQR anchor just yet, I let out all my rode and find I can swing 15’ behind the 40’er for the rest of the evening. Of course we are up all night watching and waiting. Day 6 & 7 - Morning comes and we still find no one aboard the forty footer to assist with the caught anchor. More attempts to free the anchor in daylight gave way to just giving the anchor to Neptune as a sacrifice since he seemed to want it several days before anyway. David and his boat held fast all evening and were unaware of our predicament or so they said. I was sure I heard laughing from somewhere last night. Dave found us in the morning enjoying someone named “Connors” mooring ball. Hey it was an emergency. By 9:00 AM, we are off heading toward the “GUT” and bent on getting to the end of our trip early. Less than a half mile out into the Bay Dave’s boat slows to a stop and he announces via radio that the ‘just repaired’ engine is not turning the prop. 14
The calm before the storm in Coecles Harbor. Photo: John Laton © 2014
Tow boat Flicka was back in service and out comes, you guessed it, that indispensable boat hook just in case. Did I say I was going to mount that boathook on deck? After a brief examination, David’s newly repaired Evinrude outboard now has been diagnosed with a broken driveshaft. It was quickly decided to give the engine last rites and he called, you guessed it, the now very familiar Pirate Marina. The Marina said they could not get him another Evinrude but promised they could get Dave a new Johnson in just two days. We all seemed to take that comment the wrong way except for Dave. Towed back out of 3 Mile Harbor and into the bay, David and his mate sail au natural (that’s without a motor) back to our now good friends at renamed Budget Busting Marina. Now since our clubs cruise coordinator, Cindy, suggested we stop in Coecles Harbor while on our trip, it was ironic that we spent these next two days as paying guests of the Marina while remnants of hurricane Cindy, now a tropical storm, passed through.
Dave and his unlucky Catalina 25. Photo: John Laton © 2014
Day 8 – I awoke in the morning as Cindy’s wind and rain pelted us at mooring. Looking out the port hole toward David’s boat, I saw him drenched and yanking the life out of his dinks “Cruise N Carry” air cooled motor. Now appropriately re-named the “Curse N Carry”. It was unrelenting and after watching with remorse for several minutes I went below and laughed so hard I coughed up some of the pride I have been swallowing during this trip. Eventually, the call came for Dave to accept delivery of his new $2,000.00 outboard and we had the honor of motoring him in since his dink motor was officially now DOA. Amazingly, he still had a smile on his face. For the two grand he spent on a new motor, he could have rented a private plane to fly him and his mate to Block Island and stay at a first class hotel. And he still had a smile on his face?? It made me a bit nervous since it reminded me of the smile that Jack Nicholson had in the movie “The Shinning.” I kept waiting for him to ‘crack’.
Orient by the Sea Marina with four pole docking. Photo: John Laton © 2014
Day 9 - Okay, the new motor is on Dave’s boat and he’s motoring around the harbor to break it in. It’s a beautiful day since tropical storm “Cindy” has passed. One could only hope this was the beginning of the end. We decided to go back to the four pole. “Orient by the Sea” marina to have a good head start through the ‘Gut’ the next morning. The wind was blowing pretty strong so our sails were reefed to balance our boats. It was a great 15 F
adventurous sail as we cruised at about 6-7 knots through Gardiners bay toward Orient By the Sea Marina. This time, going into that small hole in the sea wall at Orient seemed as easy as driving to the corner store. We breezed into the dock space as if we had done it a thousand times before and thanks to the ‘dragging’ lady and her husband cutting our anchor line I now had the correct number of dock lines. Actually, I think we really just didn’t give a damn what happened to our boats at this point. We just wanted to go home. After another marathon happy hour things didn’t seem all that bad this week. How could that be? Day 10 - At this point, we survived the week and it was finally time to make one long day’s journey home.. about 40 or so miles. Hell, we have been trying to go home for the last four days. Can this day be any different? We could only hope. We untied our boats and motored out of the channel. The wind was picking up by the minute. To complicate matters, both Orient Point Ferry’s decided make their presence known just as we were turning the corner around the lighthouse and into the Gut. Can we add any more chaos to the mix? Okay, let’s see, the tide is going in and the wind is blowing out at about 15 to 20 knots… Hmmmmm, this is the same scenario I read about in my “gloom and doom” books about Plum Gut. Could that stuff they said really be true? Now we’re at the point of no return. Damn, look at the size of those waves. There were four confused “rollers” in a row about 6-8 feet high that came crashing in among the very nasty standing waves. Should have gotten there closer to slack I reminded Dave. After getting chewed up and spit out by the Gut, we enter Long Island sound and find the weather over the past few days has turned the sound into a washing machine of short choppy constant 4-6 footers almost dead on our course home. After battling the whitecaps for about 5 hours, and making way at about 2 ½ to 3 knots, David gave the call to cut the sailing day short of our destination. “John, my crew and I have decided to go to Clinton CT’s Cedar Island Marina for the night.” My mate answered the call in less than a millisecond, “Great idea.” I have to admit, I’m glad David made the call because I wasn’t going to be the first one to wimp out since the Flicka was taking the steep chop well. We headed into Clinton harbor after making a quick phone call for reservations and out of 16
Towing our friends back to Coecles Marina. Photo: John Laton © 2014
the chaos and into the lap of luxury at Cedar Island Marina. I pulled to the dock first and Dave followed close behind. As Dave approached the dock he went to put the brand new motor in reverse. Yeah reverse, okay now, reverse. Dave, Dave reverse! He shouted I can’t get it in reverse. I could see the smoke bellowing out of the top of his head like a steam locomotive from the turn of the century. A quick killing of the engine and of course the all present boat hook got Dave in with minimal ego damage. After cooling off at the pool in the 98 degree heat, the motor cover came off and with the help of a little grease, the motor worked it’s way into reverse. OKAY, HAPPY HOUR again! After recapping the day, we all agreed that we were happy just to be alive. Then came the coup de gras. I asked Dave if I could use his grill to make us some grilled kielbasa and went below to fetch it. He came up saying “I can’t, seems the rough ride shook it loose and now it’s broken too”! For the second time on this trip the roar of my laughter could be heard all the way down Long Island Sound. Can anything else go wrong for this guy? Okay, it’s time for another cocktail and maybe he’ll forget. Just please keep any sharp objects away from him. Day 11 - Now it has been five days that we’ve been trying to make it only about fifty miles to return home to our club in New Haven harbor CT. A twice broken outboard and a tropical storm kept us hostage in Gardiners Bay. As we headed out of Clinton’s Cedar Island Marina it wasn’t long before we could see that the seas were still churning up and wind was again 15-20 on the nose. It was decided that motoring was in order to get out into the sound a little South past Faulkner’s Island which would allow us a course change to sail back home to New Haven Harbor. Did I just say “back to “New Haven Harbor” home sweet home?? Could it be true?? Nothing is ever as easy as it seems it should be. Finally, yes, we made it, and just in time to celebrate our safe return with a final cold beer. Did I mention how good that beer tasted being on dry land? Overall, it was a trip we’ll never forget to be sure. It improved and strengthened our sailing skills and showed that you can still have a lot of laughs even when things don’t go quite right over and over again.
PARADOX at anchor in Coecles Harbor. Photo: John Laton © 2014
Throughout the trip and through some dirty seas I must say my 20’ Flicka came through leaving both my mate and I feeling safe, comfortable and confident. 17 F