Tenants Harbor to Rockland, Maine, Including the 2022 Pacific Seacraft Maine GAM

After two nights in Tenant’s Harbor, Maine, on our new friend Steve’s mooring, we slipped the pennant and got underway for Seal Harbor at Vinalhaven Island. Soon after leaving the harbor, we were back in the Gulf of Maine and sailing to the ESE in a brisk 15 knot breeze. The day was bright and sunny, and the waters sparkling with a gentle swell. Lobster fisherman in their small boats rumbled all around us, as we picked our way through the hundreds of brightly colored trap markers, or ‘pots,’ dotting the water’s surface.

On Our Second Morning in Maine, we Were Introduced to the Infamous Maine Fog

The sheer number and density of the lobster pots in Maine was nearly overwhelming. In some spots, the actual traps must be literally stacked on the sea floor. We had been warned about this by many of our cruising friends who had experience sailing in Maine waters. “Don’t come here without line cutters on your prop shafts,” they said. Line cutters are razor sharp blades or discs attached to the propeller shaft of a boat. The risk of overrunning a pot and its lines is the entanglement of the prop is the vessel propeller. This is clearly bad for the fisherman’s gear, but it can be equally bad for the boat owner as the strains placed on the vessel’s engine and transmission are powerful enough to cause serious damage.

Unfortunately, JO BETH’s underbody design is such that there is no room to fit any type of line cutter. Lisa and I had to be vigilant whenever we were underway with the engine engaged. When sailing however, we could almost always go over the pots without incident as the propeller was not engaged and spinning. Almost always.

Less than three miles from the entrance of Tenants Harbor, while negotiating the literal sea of pots we had settled into a gentle broad reach sail, flying along at 6.5 knots, or about 7.5 miles per hour, we suddenly began to slow. We watched, confused, as our speed dropped to 5.5 knots, then 5, and then 4.

“We’ve somehow snagged a pot,” I said to Lisa.

“How?”, she asked. “Around the keel? How could that happen? There’s nothing to catch the line. It should slide off”

I looked over the stern. We were towing our dinghy ‘SCOOTS,’ on a long towing line and bridle. Scoots was surfing along behind us, with about twenty feet of towing line attached to the ten foot split bridle, which was clipped to two D rings on each side of the bow of the dinghy. There, snagged neatly under the starboard bridle, as if SCOOTS had claimed his prize and tucked it under his arm to carry it home, was a bright blue and white striped lobster pot. JO BETH hadn’t gotten entangled with a pot; but her little charge had. Well, hell.

*This Photograph Shows the Sheer Density and Numbers of Lobster Pots in Maine Waters (Stock Photo)*

We were now nearly at a standstill, down to less than two knots of speed. The strain on the towline was immense, as we drug at least the one steel lobster trap, and possibly others, across the ocean floor. I began to worry the towing line would part and that we could very possibly lose our dinghy. This would be devastating, as we depend on SCOOTS to be our lifeline to shore at times.

We tried, unsuccessfully, to pull the dinghy closer, first by hand, and then with the boathook. We quickly realized we needed to get physics on our side. We led the towing line to one of the jib sheet winches in the cockpit. Lisa began the arduous task of winching SCOOTS closer so I could take the boathook and attempt to push the pot off and away from the dinghy towing bridle. It took several minutes, exhausting for Lisa, but we soon had the pot and bridle as close to the stern of the boat as could manage. Then suddenly, with a loud ‘BANG,’ the pot went flying through the air and off to the port side of the JO BETH, and the line to the trap fell away and sank. The line attaching the pot to the trap had parted under the strain, releasing SCOOTS and JO BETH.

We now understood that towing the dinghy at a distance behind the boat, where the bow of the dinghy was close to the surface of the water, is a risk when sailing here. From that moment on, we towed SCOOTS snug and close, so that his bow and towing bridle attachments were held well above the surface of the sea.

As I mentioned in the previous post, we were in Maine for a Pacific Seacraft owner’s GAM. ‘GAM’ is a term from the days of the sailing ships, and more specifically, whaling ships. These ships were often at sea for a year or longer, and when they would happen to meet in mid-ocean, the moods of weather and captains permitting, they would stop their work and basically have a huge party – or a GAM – as they drifted together.

The Beautiful Southern Side of Vinalhaven Island, Maine

The sail from Tenants Harbor to Seal Bay isn’t far, less than 30 miles, and we were soon rounding the southern side of Vinalhaven Island. The navigable channel here is strewn with rocks and is narrow, passing between several small and large islands. Remarkably, our arrival coincided with a favorable tide, and were soon through and turned north. In the late afternoon, we entered Seal Bay and anchored among a small fleet of Pacific Seacraft yachts from all around Maine and other areas of New England. JO BETH had made the furthest distance to attend, at approximately 1,100 miles.

A total of ten boats attended the GAM; JO BETH, ORIANE, CHILD’S PLAY II, the little 24-foot HOBBIT SHIP, KELLY RAE, CATALYST, ARIOSO, MAD JACK, IPHIGENIA, and COOKIE. We visited and toured each other’s boats, an interesting way to see how others addressed challenges and issues present with all boats, spent a few hours on a ‘low tide’ beach, and generally relaxed. Tom and Kathy, on board the Pacific Seacraft 37 ORIANE, and also our hosts, entertained everyone as we relaxed in our dinghies with an impromptu acoustic guitar performance from their cockpit. All in all, it was a great time though we would have liked to have had a bit longer to get to know more of the other Pacific Seacraft sailors.

With Sunday morning came a noticeable change in the weather due to an approaching cold front. Lisa and I had initially decided to stay anchored in Seal Bay, which is a well sheltered harbor, to wait out the weather. Tom, from ORIANE, has a mooring in Rockland Harbor, to the west of Vinalhaven Island, and offered it for our use during the coming week, as he and Kathy were sailing from Seal Bay to another island group in the Gulf of Maine for the week. We eagerly said yes, as we were already planning a trip to Rockland to pick up mail which we had forwarded there.

One thing we’ve noticed in our travels are the regional differences in names for the ocean and bay channels and passages between islands. For example, in many areas of the south, including Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas, these are called ‘cuts.’ In parts of Long Island sound, they’re called ‘guts,’ and in Massachusetts, they’re often referred to as ‘holes.’ In Rhode Island, they’re called ‘passages,’ and in Maine, they’re sometimes known as a ‘reach,’ but more predominantly, as ‘thorofares.’

We left Seal Bay and set sail for Fox Islands Thorofare; then, once we were through the Thorofare, Penobscot Bay. Another thing we experienced while in New England is a real sailing culture. If the weather was good and the winds fair, there would be dozens and dozens of sailing yachts and craft everywhere. Fox Island Thorofare was no exception, and we really enjoyed seeing the beautiful boats all around us, many of them wooden boats built a century or more in the past. It was amazing.

*Crossing Penobscot Bay, Bound for Rockland Harbor*

While transiting the Thorofare, the winds steadily built until we were headed directly into a stiff 18 knot breeze. We were forced to start the motor to hold our course. Once we left the Thorofare and entered Penobscot Bay, we shut the motor off and sailed with a stiff 25 knot breeze, JO BETH flinging spray from her bow. We rocketed across the three or four mile width of Penobscot Bay and into Rockland Harbor. Rockland is a commercial harbor, with a United States Coast Guard Station, State of Maine Ferry Terminal, and a large and busy commercial fishing fleet. Soon after, we located Tom’s mooring among the moored lobster and purse-seining boats and were secured for the next week while we waited for the forecasted inclement weather to move past.