Force 7 Heavy Weather SAILING [Ep. 8]

We sail in heavy weather, setting a new speed record. Kate quits her job and goes all-in on the sailing lifestyle!

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0:00 Intro
0:29 Leaving Nantucket
We leave Nantucket in a fairly extreme weather window (by most cruisers standards) to sail across Nantucket Sound, Vineyard Sound, Buzzards Bay, and Rhode Island Sound to Narragansett Bay at Newport/Jamestown, Rhode Island. The wind is blowing 20-30 knots, there are fast currents with seawater running between the sounds and the Atlantic Ocean. There are also numerous shoals and shallow areas we must navigate safely. It is challenging sailing.

4:20 New Record Top Speed
It is a bit cold, a foul weather and life jacket kind of day. With this though, we are able to set our new top speed record for the boat, 13.9 knots boat speed (~16 miles per hour) on the reach over Martha’s Vineyard. Our sail setup was a single reef in the mainsail along with a full #2 jib/genoa trimmed to an outside lead. We had lots of fun playing in the waves.

7:58 Jamestown, RI
We covered the ~100 miles and arrived in Dutch Harbor, on Jamestown Island, part of Rhode Island, just before sunset the same day. We were sailing at greater than 200 miles per day pace, which is very fast for a cruising sailboat.

8:25 New Logo
First on our to-do list while in Jamestown was to visit GT3 Creative to have our new boat name and logo’s printed and installed. Cary, the owner of GT3, used to race Melges 24’s against us. Along with being a high-performance sailor, his company also makes the graphics for some of the best-known teams in sailing, including the Americas Cup, Volvo Ocean Race, and other high profile teams. They were also working on a new boat bottom/anti-fouling wrap when we were there. Cool stuff! We were humbled he would be putting the graphics on the little old J Boat, Sweet Ruca. They still look beautiful after 5000 miles and a year later. If you need boat graphics, call GT3 first!

10:22 Boat Projects & Shopping
It was now time to get some much-needed boat work done. The Canvas Lady, Tanya, had been working on some solar panel layouts for our bimini top while we were in Maine. So it was time to pick that up and install more solar panels. We also needed to do some general maintenance work, including plumbing repair for our shower. We visit West Marine and Home Depot as we drive around Rhode Island running errands.

13:33 Newport & USCG Documentation
We had been waiting on our official boat USCG documentation, as the boat was previously registered in England, we wanted to enlist a professional to handle the initial paperwork. We picked up our documents in downtown Newport Rhode Island.

14:48 Kate’s Resignation
We grabbed some lunch, where Kate sent her final work email. She officially quit her teaching job (resigned with notice properly, but quit for drama effect) with a countdown to sending the email. The moment draws strong emotions as Kate enjoyed her job and teaching children. We hope to do more in the future to help people in other ways.

16:41 Provisioning
Lastly we stocked up on groceries as we are preparing to make our way through Hell’s Gate and New York City on our way to the Annapolis Boat Show, and further to the Bahamas and further south to the Caribbean.

#sailing #cruising #sailboat #travelvlog #saillife

People we bought things from we now call friends, and want to share that with you. Check their websites out below.

www.gt3creative.com
www.thecanvaslady.com

About Us:
So who are we? Well, we aren’t Sailing La Vagabonde, Sailing Doodles, Sailing Uma, Gone With the Wynns, or Sailing Delos. We don’t have a fancy catamaran, but we do have a pretty spiffy and fast monohull sailboat that likes to eat cruising catamarans like the Fountaine Pajots, Leopards, and Lagoons for lunch and leave them in the dust 😉 We are Kate and Curtis, a sailing couple, with our sailing dog Roxy, aboard SV Sweet Ruca. We used to be sailboat racers on the great lakes, and our goal is to cruise around the world via the capes (the wrong way or the hard way). We will see if this will happen or not, as the “new normal” has put quite a damper on our travels. For now, enjoy our videos and join us on our journey via our YouTube Channel.

‘Till Next Time 🙂