New Code Zero for the e33 by Robbie Doyle
To All:
At the end of the season in New England putting the boat away is not only a bit sad, it can be an inconvenient bother. This year I had to do it in a two step process: 1. Deliver the boat 20 miles back from Boston to Marblehead.; 2. Haul and put it on the trailer at a later date.
Instead of being a bother, however, these two steps were two of the nicest sails I had of the season! The day that I was to deliver the boat from Boston to Marblehead it was blowing 25 to 30 from the Northwest. A bit windy but the direction was great. A run out of Boston harbor and a close reach up to Marblehead. I was alone with my Ipod hooked up to the deck speakers. No sooner had a I borne away down Boston harbor then I was doing 9.5 to 10 knots straight down wind. Wing and wing. As I came out of Boston harbor and headed up the stability of the boat showed. No reef was needed. I simply sailed with the sheet eased a bit. The full length battens kept the sail from flogging. Speed slowed a bit to 7.5 to 8 knots. Still totally comfortable and dry. I arrived in Marblehead two hours and 20 minutes later for an average speed of 8.58 knots! And arrived dry in time to watch the New England Patriots run up the score!
The afternoon that I chose to haul the boat was just the opposite: little to no wind. Aha, I had a Code Zero in the fore peak that I had been meaning to try. Before I left the mooring, I hoisted it on its own furler, and headed off down the harbor and all of a sudden instead of barely moving, I found myself going 4.5 to 5 knots! See photos. On the way through the harbor I passed through Marblehead high school’s sailing practice and found a helms person who wanted to come for a sail, and a photographer to take the pictures shown here!
Robbie Doyle
My best “start of summer” and “end of summer”
sails of all time.
By Jeremy Wurmfeld
The 2007 summer sailing season was book ended for me with two very special sails onboard the Weber family’s e33 – eMOTION (hull #5).
The Webers had a very full sailing season onboard their new e33. They took delivery in Rhode Island in May and spent the first few weekends sailing down the coast to their home waters of New York Harbor. I sailed with them on the first stage from Portsmouth, RI, to Stonington, CT. I remember laughing with Benjamin Weber at our good fortune as we were gybing down the RI coast under spinnaker on a clear day in a 10-15kt easterly. For those of you unfamiliar with the area, this weather and wind combination NEVER HAPPENS (at least for me)! We departed Portsmouth at around 7am and were tied up at Dodson’s in Stonington by 2pm. About 70 miles in 7hrs! I’ll admit, we timed the current well, but nonetheless we were averaging over 8kts through the water and 10kts over the bottom…and all seated comfortably in the cockpit. It sure is fun delivering the e33 to new owners!
The Weber’s spent the rest of the summer sailing each weekend in and around New York Harbor and also made a round trip passage down the New Jersey Coast to Barnegat Inlet and back, with 2 weeks of swimming and sailing on and around Long Beach Island in between. I kept hearing from them how much they looked forward to spending time on their e33.
Toward the end of August Benjamin and his wife Ana decided they would return to RI for some fall sailing. They had really enjoyed sailing in Long Island Sound and also in Narragansett Bay in the earlier part of the summer and wanted to spend some more time in those areas. They also had volunteered to let us display their boat in the Newport Boat Show. I invited them to keep the boat at American Yacht Club (in Western Long Island Sound) through the Labor Day Weekend in preparation for sailing up the coast the following week. A trip for which I had volunteered to crew.
After a few days of sailing at American Yacht Club, the most likely conclusion to the holiday would have been to relax and enjoy the club’s Labor Day barbeque. But as luck would have it the Sunday evening/Monday forecast was perfect for sailing to Rhode Island, and, in what I’ve pleasantly learned to be the gung-ho attitude of the Weber family, we decided to seize the moment. We departed American Yacht Club at about 5:30 pm with the destination of Portsmouth, RI – 170 miles to the East. We stowed perishables in the cooler, ran jack lines from bow to stern, donned life jackets and harnesses and sailed off into the fresh evening air. By sunset the sky was clearing and the wind had picked up to about 10-12 kts. If you saw the photo at the top of our last newsletter, that was Benjamin Jr. fishing off the stern as we headed into the night. For the overnight, we once again had a spectacular sail with 15 to 20 kts off the starboard quarter. The sky was amazingly clear and a big orange moon rose over the bow at approximately 2100. Within half an hour the orange glow had turned silver and its reflection was lighting our path across the 4 foot seas. What a sight! Later, Benjamin came back on watch around 0200 to find me laughing with the enjoyment of surfing the waves at over 10kts. We were under main and jib (no spinnaker) and still the boat was flying!
As we entered Narragansett Bay the next morning, the wind was building to 20+kts and started shifting around to the south – just in time to blow us up into the bay. We could see others fighting the chop as they headed out in the opposite direction, and we knew we made the right choice leaving on Sunday. We were alongside the dock in Portsmouth before noon. Again a remarkable passage time…170 miles in under 19 hours! Before arriving I was superstitiously not sharing my amazement at the luck this crew had for wind direction on long passages. Upon arrival I shared my thoughts and the old (and debatable) adage that “Gentlemen don’t sail to weather!” I hope my writing this article won’t curse Benjamin with long slogs to windward next season, but, if it does, I am quite confident he has the best boat for the job.
A note from Benjamin Weber
(Jeremy - I'm so glad to know you enjoyed playing chaperone - you guys at e33 really run a full service operation! I was grinning from ear-to-ear when I finished reading your account of our trip back to Newport. That weekend ranks among my all-time favorite sailing experiences. I would add that, while the moon was beautiful and a great guide for much of the evening, the open sky and the bright stars were equally stunning. Staring out into space it was easy to forget that civilization was just a few miles away; I found myself trying to imagine how sailors felt centuries ago at night on the open sea. The most memorable aspect of the evening for me was when you spotted what looked like a ship’s light dead ahead on the horizon. We realized it couldn't be man-made when it started to rise slowly in the sky. It was, of course, the Morning Star (Phosphoros or Venus) leading in the dawn. So, as the moon drifted overhead and off to the right, Venus took up its job steering us through the Race and on to Point Judith. What a spectacular experience.
Oh, and the other thing I would add is that when I came up to spell you at 0200 (whatever that is. . .) I have a much more vivid memory than just of you “laughing” – you were giggling like a child. If I close my eyes I can still see the image of you flailing about with the jib sheet in your mouth, the main in your right hand, the tiller in your left and your eyes bouncing from the instruments to the mainsail to the stern and then back to the instruments as you tried to catch the perfect wave and surf past the 11kt barrier.
How long before we can put her back in the water?) |
