Newport, RI to Portland, ME

[Midwaysailor]

Hi there,

We are planning to take our new to us 48 Oyster Lightwave from Newport to Portland. We are west coast sailors so New England is brand new to us. What cruising plan recommendations do you have? We are planning 3-4 days for the trip and will be keeping the boat at Handy's for the summer.

TIA!

[Kettlewell]

Newport to CC Canal to Provincetown, then offshore straight to Portland. About 4 days. Assuming the weather cooperates. That's a tight schedule with New England's changeable weather.

[Midwaysailor]

Thanks! I'll check that out. We have a week or so to make it work.

[dougweibel]

Time your departure from Provincetown to stay well offshore of Maine till you have enough light to see. You will find lobster trap lines and buoys in surprisingly deep water.

[Kettlewell]

If you do the PTown to Portland route you may very well see some whales on Stellwagon Bank.

[Jeffmg]

Day sailing or overnight straight through?
Marinas or just anchoring?

Flor a slow trip I’d do

Newport to Cuttyhunk
Cuttyhunk to Onset or Sandwich depending if you make the tide for the canal
Sandwich to p-town
P-town straight to Portland, or stop in Gloucester for a night

All depends on how long you want the legs to be, how many stops to make

[Midwaysailor]

Originally Posted by Jeffmg

Day sailing or overnight straight through?
Marinas or just anchoring?

Flor a slow trip I’d do

Newport to Cuttyhunk
Cuttyhunk to Onset or Sandwich depending if you make the tide for the canal
Sandwich to p-town
P-town straight to Portland, or stop in Gloucester for a night

All depends on how long you want the legs to be, how many stops to make

Thanks. Still undecided on the length and if we do any overnight sailing. We have one in our party that needs to depart on the 3rd...but we can kick him off anywhere. Mostly anchoring unless convinced we need to drop into a certain marina for some reason.

[Donahue]

Isle of shoals right off is Portsmouth is another good stop if you don't straight shot it from the canal. There isn't really anywhere to pull in between Portsmouth and Portland in a 48 footer.

[CarlF]

Done this trip at least 8 times. 50-60nm days are easy at this time of year in daylight for a 48ft boat (I do it in a 50’). If bad weather just stay put for a day, each stop is interesting enough to spend a day. Prevailing wind is from the South so no beating.

Newport to Onset - anchor at Active Captain “Onset Harbor” anchor marker. Pretty and peaceful harbor with town dinghy dock. Great pizza place ashore.

Onset to Gloucester - Hopefully canal current with you in morning. Plenty of room to anchor in outer harbor but rolly from fishing trawlers coming and going. More comfortable to get a mooring in the calm inner harbor. Launch service. Famous fishing town to explore. (“Perfect Storm”) Lots of restaurants. Very cheap, high quality diesel at Rose’s. Reserve mooring on Dockwa.

Gloucester to Bideford Pool Yacht Club mooring (Dockwa). Beautiful endless low tide sand banks to walk at low tide (or run a dog if one is lucky enough to be along). Great local take out fish place.

Biddeford Pool to Falmouth Foreside (Handy’s)

To do in three days do overnight from Onset or Gloucester. Also for crew member who wants to get off - frequent commuter rail service from Gloucester harbor to downtown Boston and Logan Airport.

[Kettlewell]

By the way, it's rather obvious, but catch a favorable current in the Cape Cod Canal to avoid fighting 4 knots of current. Then be prepared to be spit out into Cape Cod Bay where the water will be cold and there is often a fog bank in the morning. Very distinct temperature difference between Buzzards Bay and Cape Cod Bay.

[Kettlewell]

Let us know how the trip goes!

[Midwaysailor]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

Let us know how the trip goes!

Will do! Our schedule is already slipping. Ha. Looks like a Tuesday departure. Winds don’t currently look to be super favorable so we’ll see how it goes…

[Midwaysailor]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

Let us know how the trip goes!

Alright y'all,

We made it! The trip started off on shaky footing. We were taxing out for takeoff to come to Boston when I got a call from NEB saying they'd run into a problem and the boat wouldn't be ready for a few days. I'll spare you the details and the drama but suffice to say we spent the weekend on the hard, oh joy, and finally got the boat in the water Tuesday afternoon. I'm still married, so that's good. We motored to the achorage at Newport the first night. Second day there was light wind so we motored all day and made it through to P-town...complete with a night approach the last hour, not fun, but all well other than our blood pressure. Set off at first light from P-town hoping for the forecast S-SW winds to hold up for a run to Handy's, but they did not. Still got to put up the sails on our new to us boat for the first time -- it's fast! On a broad reach coming out of P-town we were 9+ knots on 14 of breeze. Downwind the rest of the day, mostly wing on wing. We were over the Stelwagon bank and did see whales at about 300-500 yards a few times, and a few dolphins. We ended up at the anchorage at Richmond Island...another night approach. We don't drink but that would have been the night to start. Dodging lobster buoys on a moonless night in decent sized seas doesn't hit my list of "Top 10 Things to do whilst Sailing." First day of dense fog (as told by the Launch driver at Handy's) the next morning so we had a nice swim waiting for the fog to life because, well....it made a good picture? Then on into Handy's by noon with mostly decesnt viz. All in all the boat performed well, as did the crew. We'll take a month off and recover our courage to go bouy dodging again in early August!

Thanks to everyone for all their insights and sharing of local knowlege, it definitely helped give us the options we needed and a bit more confidence in our planning.

[CaptTom]

Nice pics! Thanks for the update!

You've earned the right to cruise Maine; you've learned to respect the local hazards (fog, rocks, lobster buoys.) It's really all about keeping a constant lookout. Some never learn that. We'll talk about toggles when you're ready to head further east.

Two tiny questions about those pics. In the first one, how did you get your port light reflecting onto the starboard side of the deck and anchor, and vice-versa? Seems like that could be a problem. And in that second pic, that bridge looks real familiar, but I don't recall anything like that in the Portland/Falmouth area. What am I missing?

[Midwaysailor]

Thanks. It was even more of a trial by fire than I described. Had to anchor under sail when the engine quit going into the canal….that was sporty but we managed it well. Also had a wind shift foul our gennaker around the jib furling. We did earn a few stripes on this trip.

Yeah, definitely want all the gouge and tips we can get. The light reflection is just because it’s a night exposure on an iPhone (pretty good, really). And that’s the Claiborne Pell bridge in Newport.