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PRIDE OF BALTIMORE II is on her way to the Great Lakes again.  She is out on her first leg of a voyage of something more than 2,000 nautical miles just to get to the Great Lakes.  In the end, by the time she reaches Chicago, PRIDE II will have transited the same number of miles it would require to reach Europe across the North Atlantic from Baltimore, Maryland.  However, in this voyage, there are a number of stops to be made.  During an ocean crossing there would be very few opportunities to make any stops.  New York City is the first stop on our way to the Great Lakes.

We got ahead of schedule because of some fresh and favorable winds that shoved PRIDE II along at 10 knots on several occasions.  As a result, we were able to anchor late last night and spend today doing ship's work.  The weather is dry, breezy and cool as the new high pressure drifts in over the area.  We can't do the cosmetics I want because of the wind sending salt laden air over the ship.  But we can attack many other items on PRIDE II's perennial list of things needing doing.

After being ashore at home since March 20, I relieved my partner, Captain Beebe-Center, on May 15.  My time at home seemed short this time.  Maybe this is due to the extra 5 months I spent aboard PRIDE II in France during the mast-repair period.  Whatever the cause, once back aboard, I spent the second half of May and the first week of June working with the crew attending to post-ocean crossing maintenance and pre-summer departure preparations, while also executing public daysails during the weekends. 

The ship also participated in the celebration of 300 years of the Port of Baltimore and the Annual PRIDE Person of the Year Gala.  In between, my wife Leslie and I struggled with how to arrange for re-enforcement of our distorting basement walls in our modest 1960's era Rancher home.  The arrangements have been made...but they will occur while I am away.  Another case of bad or good fortune depending on whose perspective is in the fore.  My profession of going away may pay the bills...but it leaves Leslie handling things alone while I am away.  I suppose we could have planned better.  In any event, I return home mid-July while Leslie is not working as a teacher (one of the good things about being in the teaching profession), which should provide a good opportunity to bring balance to this particular separation.

With the sail up to New York from Baltimore, I have now had my second sail with the new spars. Those of you that have been keeping up with the news and progress of PRIDE II's dismasting will remember that our first sail with the new spars was from France to Lisbon.  The ship felt the same as she did with the old masts, at least generally.  My second sail does not change that feeling.  Other than the first immediate sense that the new spars are stiffer, nothing else of much account is changed. The appearance has changed a bit, nothing that bothers anyone for the most part anyway.  They look new and they have a smoother appearance, and they have a brighter/lighter/blonder color as well as an interesting lamination (glue-line) pattern.  But overall, the general consensus seems to be that if it works, it's fine - and it doesn't look bad either.  In fact,1 it looks quite good.

So, with a cold front coming and squalls of thunder, lightening and rain as we departed Baltimore and headed up to the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, we did not set sail but instead drilled and drilled on safety policy and equipment while motoring along our way.  By evening time, and after one substantial squall of 35 knots with rain and two squalls with only rain, we entered the Canal with nearly fair sky.  By 2200, shortly after clearing the Delaware end of the Canal, we set sail in a new west to northwest breeze and headed down the Delaware River to the Delaware Bay and the North Atlantic.

The overnight sail was steady at about 7 knots sailing under the foresail, square-foretopsail, staysail and jib.  The wind was on the starboard quarter and by not using the mainsail the speed through the water was kept moderate, which also meant the steering was light rather than heavy with weather helm had the mainsail been up.  With a largely new crew, this conservatism gave all a chance to find their rhythm with their jobs and what life was like underway at night.  Just before breakfast, we were at the Atlantic and gibing toward the northeast while the wind started to increase.  PRIDE II started to slide along at 10 knots.

By midday the predicted increase of wind during the day was being felt as winds of 25 to 30 knots started to creep up to 35 knots and hint at going to 40 knots, so we struck and stowed the square foretopsail and the jib leaving us with just the staysail and the foresail.  We did not slow down much but we were more comfortable with a reduced angle of heel.

Striking PRIDE II's large square-topsail can be a bear in higher winds.  But if we are careful to apply some technique, it can be made fairly manageable.  In almost all wind conditions, it is typical to keep the wind behind a squaretopsail so as to preserve orderliness, as well as facilitate striking.  In the higher winds, it can be beneficial to arrange for the wind to come in one side (leach) rather than directly at the whole sail.  For this occasion, I steered the ship downwind presenting the lee (starboard) leach to the wind at a sharp angle.  By taking the sail in one side at a time, windward first, it was possible to reduce the potential for violent flapping in the wind and also keep the sail centered as it was struck and drawn up to the top yard.  Once the windward side of the squaretopsail (which was the lee side before steering downwind) was drawn-up, the downwind side of the sail was brought up and I turned back up-wind to our course paralleling the New Jersey shore.  But the wind was more than I liked on the jib and the jib-boom, so we bore off the wind again and struck the sail with the wind from behind.  This technique also tends to eliminate flogging as well as helps to "land" the sail into the jib-boom head-rig netting.  Then we turned back onto our course.  The apparent wind was about 50 to 60 degrees and PRIDE II was still feeling the power of the wind under just the forestaysail and the foresail as she moved along at 8 knots and more in the puffs of upwards of 40 to 45 knots.  The sea was nearly smooth as we had the protection of the lee of the Jersey shore only a mile or two to windward.

We arrived off the north end of Sandy Point at the lower lip of the entrance to New York harbor by 2100 hours.  The wind had reduced and with such shortened sail, the going was slow.  Instead of setting sail in the dark and struggling to sail to windward to our anchorage against strong ebb currents between New York Lower Harbor shoals, I opted to conserve crew strength and rest by motoring.  All was secure before midnight and with an anchor watch set, we had a comfortable night in preparation of a full day of attending to ship care.

Today we worked: on cleaning the ship below and on deck; re-fitted teak tread pads on the recently stripped and re-varnished bulwark rail cap; pulled apart the propane stove oven gas burner to see what was wrong (needs a new oven burner); fixed the mixed up and non-functional wiring for sending GPS information to nearly half a dozen instruments; finished tying the new wire cabling in the mainmast rigging;' re-tied the square-foretopsail head-rope corners so they do not slip down around the square-foretopsail yard causing a distortion of the proper sail shape; installed a new ship's air-horn; and wrote this log.

A pretty good day!

Cheers,
Captain Miles