Newport delivery and the newport boat show

As I write this blog entry, Koloa Maoli and I are preparing to leave Newport, Rhode Island and continue on towards Connecticut and Long Island Sound, and eventually points further south. What a whirlwind the past few weeks have been though! On Sunday September 7, we departed Portland to sail down to Newport. The forecast models were not in agreement, and so we really didn’t know what the weather would hold, but one thing was certain; we were leaving in the rain. Shortly after motoring off the dock at Maine Yacht Center and out the channel from Portland Harbor, we reached the ocean and began sailing mostly upwind on a port tack. We were on the right tack, but the wind was a lot more easterly than I was anticipating, and right around the time I resigned myself that we were not going to set a spinnaker, the wind backed as the models had been predicting.

Koloa Maoli sailing south off of the New Hampshire coast under full main, staysail and super old A3 spinnaker. The kite still has ‘IRL 15’ on the sail!

As soon as the wind went aft, our delivery A3 spinnaker went up. And what could have been a frustratingly light 5 knots, maybe up to 10 knots of wind was in reality more like 12 or 13 knots from a pretty good angle. Ripping along down the coast, we were making good time and having lovely sailing, if not getting wet and cold. My first time out in the ocean with the boat, I was enjoying not only learning the boat more but also using various systems for the first time. Right before the delivery, I was re-installing gear (that had been removed to reduce weight for racing and daysailing), and I installed the port fuel tank, which feeds the diesel heater that Dave installed for the Southern Ocean. I traced back the wires from the unit and figured out where the thermostat was and gave it a go. Boom. We had glorious heat, and a little drying station just off to starboard of the companionway. That’ll come in handy in the Southern Ocean.

Eventually the rain stopped in the afternoon, but the breeze just kept on hanging in there. In the end, the morning breeze ended up being pretty close to the Euro (EC) weather model, and very different from the US (GFS) model, which I have found to be more accurate most of the time. With great sailing as opposed to potentially just motoring all the way to Cape Cod, we were stoked. The breeze finally died right around the Gloucester Peninsula, off of Massachusetts. Once the breeze went soft enough, we doused the kite and fired up the motor. Motoring past Gloucester, the waves eventually backed off and the cloud cover moved out to treat us to a brilliant and very photogenic sunset.

Motoring for a few hours past Gloucester and towards the Cape Cod Canal, the new breeze began filling just as the two models had both been predicting. Sailing towards the Cape Cod Canal on a starboard tack in perfectly flat water, we were able to make good speed in very light winds. Right at the canal, we fired up the motor and rolled up the jib. Arriving on the earlier side of when we planned to get to the canal, we still had good current with us and made excellent time through the canal. Had we been later than anticipated, we would have missed our tide window and would have been extremely slow due to strong adverse currents in the canal, but fortunately that wasn’t the case.

A stunning sunset, motoring off of Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Right as we got to the other end of the canal that dumps into Buzzards Bay, the breeze had now filled and the boat powered up on a reach with just the mainsail and the motor. It’s a very narrow channel, but with the breeze on such a good angle, I rolled out the jib and killed the engine. Exiting the canal at 3:10 AM with full sail set and making 9 knots, we had to make quite a spectacular sight for the cruising sailboat that we passed as we exited the canal. Once into Buzzards Bay in the new NW breeze, we were ripping across the Bay and began to get really powered up, especially for being on a delivery with two crew sleeping down below. We tucked in a mainsail reef, and switched from the bigger solent jib to the smaller staysail, and were still ripping along at 8-9 knots most of the time. As the sun rose, we had a very nice sail along the south coast of Mass and Rhode Island until we made the turn into Newport.

Transiting the Cape Cod Canal in the middle of the night on Koloa Maoli.

Once making the turn north, we were upwind into Newport and had to throw in several tacks to get to the destination. An absolutely glorious and breezy morning sail that was just enough wind to stick with our current sail configuration of 1 reef and staysail, and we reached the dock at Fort Adams after about 25 hours and some change from Portland. Docked by 9 AM, we had a crew breakfast and then Marisa, Robert and Harper took off back to Maine while I prepared for the boat show. Huge thanks to my awesome delivery crew that I was pleased to bring on the trip. My girlfriend Marisa, recent Maine Maritime Academy grad and offshore sailor Robert Jacobs and Sail Maine hotshot 29er sailor Harper Rowse, who also sails with us on Marisa’s J/29.

Crew shot on the dock at Fort Adams in Newport. L to R: Ronnie, Robert, Marisa, Harper

The following day I moved the boat over to the boat show with my buddy Andrew. It was very busy with boat traffic ahead of the show, but we managed to pop onto an empty spot on the dock, and then a few hours later were able to move to our permanent spot for the show. Major thanks to Lisa Knowles, Director of the Newport International Boat Show and to Luke Peckham, the dock master at Newport Yachting Center for their help in getting me into the show and all set up.

The boat show was insane! Thousands of folks were walking the docks and we welcomed countless people onboard throughout the course of the weekend. The boat was super busy the entire time, with a handful of people on the boat at any given point in time. My girlfriend Marisa helped me man the boat all weekend, and so I am super grateful for her help. Between spreading awareness for the campaign, engaging with sponsors both new and old, and in making some good new connections I think the show was a good opportunity and that it was worth the trip. As well, the Annapolis show is a good bit larger and also 100% sailing oriented, and is thus an even better show for a campaign like ours. So i’m optimistic that this whole trip is going to pay off for us, and help me get the boat that much closer to the starting line of the Global Solo Challenge.

Busy docks and always guests onboard at the Newport International Boat Show. It certainly didn’t hurt that the weather was spectacular every day!

We’ve got some sponsorship stuff in the works with a good number of different brands, and we’ll be creating content on social media and through the website, blog and newsletter to announce different sponsors as things are finalized. Also, i’ll be creating a sponsor’s page on the website to highlight all of the awesome companies and organizations that are supporting this campaign.

Tomorrow i’ll be sailing the boat to Block Island and then Connecticut for a speaking engagement at the Pequot Yacht Club in Connecticut. I’ll likely leave the boat there for a week or so until sailing it into New York City and then down to Annapolis for the Annapolis Boat Show in October. Koloa Maoli will be headed back north in October and do a bit of sailing into early November in Portland before being hauled out over the winter.