Gerry: For some reason I am not seeing your e-mails directly. Nonetheless, I saw Connie's reply and, as a New England M17 sailor, I will add a little to what he said. First, an M17 is very capable of handling anything you are likely to encounter in coastal cruising around here this time of year. Just keep an eye on the weather forecasts for tropical systems or so-called Nor'easters (rare in summer). You also have to pay more attention to tides and currents than you may be used to. North of Cape Cod we have 10 foot tides and they only get bigger as you go further north (or downeast, as they like to say in Maine). South of the Cape, the tides are modest but there are significant currents in all the sounds. Sailing with the tides and the currents is a joy, but trying to buck them in a sailboat the size of an M17 is frustrating at best and dangerous at worst. As Connie mentioned, you want to get the Eldridge Guide for this. Ditto for sea state. In my experience, the M17 just does not have the heft needed to beat into steep waves and trying to do so is hard on the boat and the crew. You can compensate by taking the waves more on the beam, but then you aren't covering much ground to windward. Choose your destination accordingly. Connie already mentioned fog and I will add that even without fog there may be times when you are out of sight of land for a while. If you do not already have one, you probably will want to get a GPS device to supplement your compass and your charts. As far as destinations, there are lots of good ones but I will only mention a couple. Penobscot Bay is pretty much the holy grail of New England sailing and you can't go wrong exploring the many islands, sounds and harbors there. I also recommend the islands south of the Cape: Block, Cuttyhunk, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Especially on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket the M17's shallow draft will allow you to access some lovely ponds and bays that bigger boats rarely attempt. For lack of time, I do almost all my sailing these days in the relatively protected waters of Duxbury Bay, Kingston Bay and Plymouth Harbor. I am always looking for crew if that interests you.
Wow, time can fly by. I never replied to the very helpful advice and offers I got a few weeks ago (life has been a bit crazy, but that's no excuse so I wanted to get back here). Thanks very much for all the input. I know Connie and others wrote also, but right now I can't find the emails. More searching is in order. I'd love to go out on one of the local NE bays or harbors, but I think the rest of this year is out. We are about to go into an outage at work and it will require a lot of overtime. I need to prep for winter at home and get a few more sailing days on our reservoir. I'll spent some of winter reading about coastal sailing and looking over charts (my wife won a chart set for the NE at the Defender sale). Oh, If anyone has been following Jeanne Socrates' adventure, she might actually finish today. Winds have been light though. http://www.svnereida.com Gerry On Wednesday, August 14, 2019, 03:03:44 PM EDT, swwheatley@comcast.net <swwheatley@comcast.net> wrote: Gerry: For some reason I am not seeing your e-mails directly. Nonetheless, I saw Connie's reply and, as a New England M17 sailor, I will add a little to what he said. First, an M17 is very capable of handling anything you are likely to encounter in coastal cruising around here this time of year. Just keep an eye on the weather forecasts for tropical systems or so-called Nor'easters (rare in summer). You also have to pay more attention to tides and currents than you may be used to. North of Cape Cod we have 10 foot tides and they only get bigger as you go further north (or downeast, as they like to say in Maine). South of the Cape, the tides are modest but there are significant currents in all the sounds. Sailing with the tides and the currents is a joy, but trying to buck them in a sailboat the size of an M17 is frustrating at best and dangerous at worst. As Connie mentioned, you want to get the Eldridge Guide for this. Ditto for sea state. In my experience, the M17 just does not have the heft needed to beat into steep waves and trying to do so is hard on the boat and the crew. You can compensate by taking the waves more on the beam, but then you aren't covering much ground to windward. Choose your destination accordingly. Connie already mentioned fog and I will add that even without fog there may be times when you are out of sight of land for a while. If you do not already have one, you probably will want to get a GPS device to supplement your compass and your charts. As far as destinations, there are lots of good ones but I will only mention a couple. Penobscot Bay is pretty much the holy grail of New England sailing and you can't go wrong exploring the many islands, sounds and harbors there. I also recommend the islands south of the Cape: Block, Cuttyhunk, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Especially on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket the M17's shallow draft will allow you to access some lovely ponds and bays that bigger boats rarely attempt. For lack of time, I do almost all my sailing these days in the relatively protected waters of Duxbury Bay, Kingston Bay and Plymouth Harbor. I am always looking for crew if that interests you.
For winter reading I recommend The Coast of Summer by Anthony Bailey. Harbors have become a little more crowded since he wrote the book but it does a good job capturing the essence of coastal cruising in southern New England. -----Original Message----- From: montgomery_boats <montgomery_boats-bounces@mailman.xmission.com> On Behalf Of Gerry Lempicki via montgomery_boats Sent: Friday, September 6, 2019 7:53 AM To: For and about Montgomery Sailboats <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: Re: M_Boats: Sailing safety Wow, time can fly by. I never replied to the very helpful advice and offers I got a few weeks ago (life has been a bit crazy, but that's no excuse so I wanted to get back here). Thanks very much for all the input. I know Connie and others wrote also, but right now I can't find the emails. More searching is in order. I'd love to go out on one of the local NE bays or harbors, but I think the rest of this year is out. We are about to go into an outage at work and it will require a lot of overtime. I need to prep for winter at home and get a few more sailing days on our reservoir. I'll spent some of winter reading about coastal sailing and looking over charts (my wife won a chart set for the NE at the Defender sale). Oh, If anyone has been following Jeanne Socrates' adventure, she might actually finish today. Winds have been light though. http://www.svnereida.com Gerry On Wednesday, August 14, 2019, 03:03:44 PM EDT, swwheatley@comcast.net <swwheatley@comcast.net> wrote: Gerry: For some reason I am not seeing your e-mails directly. Nonetheless, I saw Connie's reply and, as a New England M17 sailor, I will add a little to what he said. First, an M17 is very capable of handling anything you are likely to encounter in coastal cruising around here this time of year. Just keep an eye on the weather forecasts for tropical systems or so-called Nor'easters (rare in summer). You also have to pay more attention to tides and currents than you may be used to. North of Cape Cod we have 10 foot tides and they only get bigger as you go further north (or downeast, as they like to say in Maine). South of the Cape, the tides are modest but there are significant currents in all the sounds. Sailing with the tides and the currents is a joy, but trying to buck them in a sailboat the size of an M17 is frustrating at best and dangerous at worst. As Connie mentioned, you want to get the Eldridge Guide for this. Ditto for sea state. In my experience, the M17 just does not have the heft needed to beat into steep waves and trying to do so is hard on the boat and the crew. You can compensate by taking the waves more on the beam, but then you aren't covering much ground to windward. Choose your destination accordingly. Connie already mentioned fog and I will add that even without fog there may be times when you are out of sight of land for a while. If you do not already have one, you probably will want to get a GPS device to supplement your compass and your charts. As far as destinations, there are lots of good ones but I will only mention a couple. Penobscot Bay is pretty much the holy grail of New England sailing and you can't go wrong exploring the many islands, sounds and harbors there. I also recommend the islands south of the Cape: Block, Cuttyhunk, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Especially on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket the M17's shallow draft will allow you to access some lovely ponds and bays that bigger boats rarely attempt. For lack of time, I do almost all my sailing these days in the relatively protected waters of Duxbury Bay, Kingston Bay and Plymouth Harbor. I am always looking for crew if that interests you.
Thanks, I see I can get it at the library. :) On Friday, September 6, 2019, 08:37:54 AM EDT, swwheatley@comcast.net <swwheatley@comcast.net> wrote: For winter reading I recommend The Coast of Summer by Anthony Bailey. Harbors have become a little more crowded since he wrote the book but it does a good job capturing the essence of coastal cruising in southern New England.
Thanks very much for recommending this book! I got it from the library and have been addicted to reading it with Navionics chart viewer running alongside, tracking his path. Sure makes one want to get out and do it! -Gerry
On Sep 6, 2019, at 8:37 AM, <swwheatley@comcast.net> <swwheatley@comcast.net> wrote:
For winter reading I recommend The Coast of Summer by Anthony Bailey. Harbors have become a little more crowded since he wrote the book but it does a good job capturing the essence of coastal cruising in southern New England.
-----Original Message----- From: montgomery_boats <montgomery_boats-bounces@mailman.xmission.com> On Behalf Of Gerry Lempicki via montgomery_boats Sent: Friday, September 6, 2019 7:53 AM
I keep hearing about this book ,but have yet seen the title I know I must have missed it originally . can you give me the title? Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Gerry Lempicki via montgomery_boats Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2019 7:01 PM To: swwheatley@comcast.net Cc: For and about Montgomery Sailboats Subject: Re: M_Boats: Sailing safety Thanks very much for recommending this book! I got it from the library and have been addicted to reading it with Navionics chart viewer running alongside, tracking his path. Sure makes one want to get out and do it! -Gerry
On Sep 6, 2019, at 8:37 AM, <swwheatley@comcast.net> <swwheatley@comcast.net> wrote:
For winter reading I recommend The Coast of Summer by Anthony Bailey. Harbors have become a little more crowded since he wrote the book but it does a good job capturing the essence of coastal cruising in southern New England.
-----Original Message----- From: montgomery_boats <montgomery_boats-bounces@mailman.xmission.com> On Behalf Of Gerry Lempicki via montgomery_boats Sent: Friday, September 6, 2019 7:53 AM
The Coast of Summer by Anthony Bailey :: Dave Scobie :: M6'8" #650 :: SV SWALLOW - sv-swallow.com :: former owner M17 #375 SWEET PEA - m17-375.com :: former owner M15 #288 SCRED - www.freewebs.com/m15-named-scred/ On Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 4:19 PM edwin jenkins <ejenkins1953@gmail.com> wrote:
I keep hearing about this book ,but have yet seen the title I know I must have missed it originally . can you give me the title?
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
From: Gerry Lempicki via montgomery_boats Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2019 7:01 PM To: swwheatley@comcast.net Cc: For and about Montgomery Sailboats Subject: Re: M_Boats: Sailing safety
Thanks very much for recommending this book! I got it from the library and have been addicted to reading it with Navionics chart viewer running alongside, tracking his path. Sure makes one want to get out and do it! -Gerry
On Sep 6, 2019, at 8:37 AM, <swwheatley@comcast.net> < swwheatley@comcast.net> wrote:
For winter reading I recommend The Coast of Summer by Anthony Bailey. Harbors have become a little more crowded since he wrote the book but it does a good job capturing the essence of coastal cruising in southern New England.
-----Original Message----- From: montgomery_boats <montgomery_boats-bounces@mailman.xmission.com> On Behalf Of Gerry Lempicki via montgomery_boats Sent: Friday, September 6, 2019 7:53 AM
participants (4)
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Gerry Lempicki -
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