More than 99% of Madrone’s ocean miles have been sailed doublehanded – just Mike and Angie on board. The ~200 miles from Portland to Newport, OR, were sailed with Mike’s friend Allen as crew, but aside from that trip there have never been other folks aboard for an overnight trip.
Some people always recruit crew for longer passages. The benefit is more hands to help with sailhandling, shorter watches with more sleep in between, and a better chance of someone to talk with to help the overnight shifts pass faster.
Jim and Janet have cruising dreams of their own, and they’ve identified the Taswell 43 as a great platform for those plans. They found Madrone’s boat tour and contacted us to ask a few questions. As luck would have it, they live and work on Cape Cod – since we were going to be there we invited them to the boat for an in-person tour. And we enjoyed their company so much that we invited them to sail a ~300 mile passage from Newport, RI, to the Chesapeake Bay with us.
With winter approaching, it’s late in the sailing season – the weather windows this time of year are short and shifty. We ordinarily like to have a forecast for favorable wind that starts before we leave and extends until after we’re likely to arrive. In this case, though, the only decent weather in the extended forecast would require us to depart heading directly into the wind and waves. After the first 6-8 hours, the wind would swing aft to provide better sailing conditions.
Unfortunately for Jim and Janet, the actual conditions were exactly as forecast. Madrone pulled out of Narragansett Bay into 20 knots and 4-6 foot seas exactly on the nose. Those conditions would be uncomfortable in any small boat, and we would have avoided them if better weather were on the horizon.
But after seven hours or so, the wind swung around just as forecasted, and Madrone took off on a beam reach along the southern edge of Long Island before turning south down the New Jersey coast.
Despite the rough start, the passage turned out to be great. We had a fantastic sailing conditions, Jim and Janet got a taste of ocean sailing aboard a Taswell 43, and Mike and Angie enjoyed having extra hands on board.
That wouldn’t be the case with just any crew. Jim and Janet were fun to spend time with, were respectful of the boat, and are great all around folks. We hope that we can share an anchorage with them down the road someday.
