Free Energy just departed Cuttyhunk after spending Memorial Day weekend there. Free Energy is now heading north in Buzzard Bay towards Onset as she leisurely makes her way back to Boston.
Cuttyhunk is a small town on the southern most of the Elizabethan Islands with a permanent population of just over 100, and is my favorite places to visit in Buzzards Bay. The island doesn’t feel over built up like so much of Cape Cod these days. There are 2 road intersections on the entire island and plenty of undeveloped land.
Weather was mostly cool (50s) and cloudy over the weekend, but the morning tended to be sunny so I walked a few miles each morning Free Energy was there. There is a beautiful lookout at the highest point on the island that’s only about 2 miles from where Free Energy was moored. The photo above is from that lookout, and if you’re eagle eyed you can see Free Energy in the mooring field.
I’m looking forward in bringing Free Energy back to later this summer when it’s a bit warmer and I can enjoy swimming the in the ocean.
Free Energy arrived in Newport, RI roughly on schedule yesterday and is now safely docked at a Marina. The last 40nm approaching Newport felt like some of the longest of the trip. The conditions were fairly benign compared to what Free Energy has gone through earlier in the passage. It was just after having traveled ~1000nm, 40nm seems like so little and let it’s still 5-6h of travel.
Now that I’ve been back for a day I’ve had a chance to reflect on the passage while it’s still fairly fresh in my mind that I’ll go over in this blog.
Free Energy
Free Energy performed really well. The capability of most sailboats exceeds that of the capability of the crew and this is more true of Free Energy than most sailboats. Even though Free Energy was built in 2024, she is an old school design that is intended for long offshore passages where your much more likely to encounter heavy weather. This is rarity this day in age, most modern sailboats are intended for day sailing and coastal cruising. There isn’t anything wrong with that. It’s what most people want to do with their sailboat, heck it’s mostly what I do with Free Energy. The robust, offshore, heavy weather design is also not without compromise. Free Energy has less living space than an modern boat of the same length. The deep safe and well protected cockpit is awesome on rough passages, but in pleasant conditions it can be nicer to have a more open cockpit. Nevertheless, one of the reasons I decided to buy an Outbound 46 (Free Energy is an Outbound 46 sailboat) was because of the robust design and I’m happy with my choice.
One of the times I was impressed with Free Energy on this passage was on the last night as we traveled along the length of long island. I knew the winds would be strong and gusty so I’d reduced our sail area at sunset so we wouldn’t be overpowered in the high winds during the night. The winds, however, turned out to be a bit stronger than expected and I worried about being overpowered even with the reduced sail area. One of the ways you can tell a boat is overpowered is it becomes difficult to steer, especially in gusty winds, so I checked the autopilot to see if it was struggling to steer in the high winds. To my surprise it wasn’t struggling at all. About 60% of the time it was keeping the rudder dead straight (i.e., not need turning the rudder to change Free Energy’s course) and when it did adjust course it didn’t need to turn the rudder very much.
Sailing Ability
I’ve owned Free Energy for a little over a year and I’ve been living aboard solo for the vast majority of that time. While I still have much to learn about Free Energy I’ve learned a lot about Free Energy since she was first built, and I really felt that on this passage. There are always things I need to address on a passage like this, but every time one of those things came up on this passage I always knew what to do.
One example occurred when I needed to reef the main sail in the middle of the night. This can be slightly tricky because the sail rolls up inside the boom itself when you reef it and you need to have the sail roll such that the sail doesn’t walk forward or backwards along the spindle it’s being rolled up on. That night when I rolled up the sail it kept walking forward on the spindle. You can generally prevent this by pulling harder in the main halyard when the sail comes down, but that wasn’t working. After trying twice I realized the boom angle must be the issue even though it was in its normal position for rolling (I speculate that in high winds the boom angle needs to be different than usual). Sure enough once I tweaked that the sail rolled up just fine. I’m not sure I would have figured that out a year ago.
I also have a better feel for how the boat handles in different conditions, and how to handler in those conditions when they arise. Last year when I first got Free Energy I would never have had her out in some of the conditions I chose to sail in on this passage.
Starlink & Weather Models
Free Energy is equipped with Starlink, which provides high speed internet access wherever Free Energy goes. High speed internet access has only been available for a few years on private offshore vessels, and it’s a real game changer because it provides easy access to very detailed weather models. Prior to this you could get weather information underway, but it wasn’t easy to get, updates were less frequent, and it wasn’t as detailed.
I checked the weather models constantly during this passage (I’ll go into what resources I used to do look at the models in another blog). This let me develop the strategy of hugging the east coast of the US after Free Energy passed Cape Hatteras that resulted in a much calmer sea state. Without Starlink I don’t think I would have recognized that was a viable option.
Sleep
I need to learn to sleep better on passages. We arrived at Newport yesterday and I slept for 8-9h last night, but I still felt somewhat exhausted for most of the day. Over the passage I build up quite a sleep deficit that I think I’m paying for now. While on the passage I didn’t feel this that much, but the day after the passage I really feel it. I’m expecting with another good night sleep I’ll finally feed rested.
The reason I ran such a sleep deficit was in part due to the rough conditions we had several of the nights. The crew also needed me several times during the night (I told them to always get me if they needed me), but they only woke me up a few times. The biggest contributor was my obsession with the weather models and navigation of Free Energy. I routinely woke up after 1.5h of sleep picked up my iPad and looked at weather models for 45min rather than going back to sleep. Keeping a close eye on the weather is obviously a good thing, but I probably need to balance it a little better with sleep.
Misery Loves Company
A bit of a facetious section title, but on the way to Newport I was contacted by a sailboat on No Foreign Land about 40nm south of us asking if we were going to Newport like they were. We wound up talking regularly about our routing strategies and what conditions were like. After we both got to Newport they swung by Free Energy and we chatting for a while about our respective experiences. It was fun chatting with someone who had just been through the same passage and talking about to all the ups and downs we experienced.
Crew & Teamwork
Doing an offshore passage like this is a rewarding experience, in part due to the dynamics of the crew. These passages do have some danger to them. While Free Energy is designed for this, she needs a crew to sail her well to be safe. That means the crew and I depend on each other to do their jobs well. There is something very satisfying being part of a team that needs to work together to keep each other safe. Sebastian Junger talks about this is in book Tribe, albeit with teams in much more dangerous circumstances.
Beauty
I feel like I may have leaned into the difficulties of the passage to much in these blogs. It is amazing doing an offshore passage like this. We saw dolphins swimming alongside Free Energy 150nm offshore. The night sky is spectacular offshore away from light pollution, and my crew reported seeing several meteors at night. I was fortunate enough to have the watch schedule that let me see the sunrises and sunsets.
The sight I remember the most about this passage happened late one night. I’d gotten up to in the middle of the night in some rough conditions to make some changes to the sail plan. As I was finishing I happened to look off the starboard side of the boat and see that the moon had just risen over the clouds to cast a silverly path over the ocean waves. I didn’t have a camera with me and even if I did it would never have captured the moment, but it was spectacular!
