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POINTS

December, 2014

EAST

The Boating Magazine for Coastal New England

The striking art
of Russ Kramer

Frostbiting
Tiny boats, frigid water

ICW south
Aboard the Just Ducky

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Points East December 2014

editor@pointseast.com

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POINTS

EAST

The Boating Magazine for Coastal New England
Volume 17 Number 8 December 2014
F E AT U R E S

24

32

43

Carrying the torch

OCC’s new Vertue Award, News.

20

Round Island Regatta, Racing Pages.

48

Morris Ocean Series 48, Yardwork.

58

Headed back south, Last Word.

78

When in his teens, Connecticut artist Russ
Kramer was blown away by the nautical paintings of Carl G. Evers, and the seeds of the
dream to be a marine artist were sown.
By Bob Muggleston

Frosty fun
These intrepid sailors, who race Cape Cod
Frosties in New Castle, N.H., from the first weekend in November through the first weekend in
May (brrrrrr!), are passionate about their sport.
By Paula Harrington

It was all Just Ducky
Part I: Our saga began in September, with just
about the best sailing weather possible as we left
Mystic, Conn., for our second trip to Florida in
Just Ducky, our Hunter 37.5.
By Pamela Mormino
LAST WORD

78

4

Why I am going back
I really don’t know why, but I frequently
cruise to places I have already visited. Now I
am again headed down the Intracoastal Waterway, leaving my beloved New England
behind.
By Dick Klain

Points East December 2014

editor@pointseast.com

COLUMNS

12

David Roper

Leaves of three and the sea
Poison ivy almost scuttles a cruise.
Randy Randall

Wharf rats are different
Young watermen/waterwomen impress.
Greg Coppa

Captain Lou

POINTS

EAST

The Boating Magazine for Coastal New England
Volume 17, Number 8
Publisher
Joseph Burke
Editor
Nim Marsh
Associate Editor
Bob Muggleston
Marketing director
Bernard Wideman

Every waterfront needs a character.
D E PA R T M E N T S

Letters..........................................7
Capt. Mike “paints” Bermuda;
On Uffa Fox and Moby Dick;
Sad time at Marston’s Marina.

Mystery Harbor ............................8
A great ocean race starts here.
New Mystery Harbor on page 90.
News..........................................20
Peter McCrea honored by OCC;
Cuckolds Light Inn seeks “keepers;”
SSCA Downeast Gam hosts 61 boats.
The Racing Pages ........................48
Volvo Race Leg 1 action, results;
J/24 World Championship;
N.H.’s fun Round Island Regatta.

Media ........................................56
Online coverage of Volvo Race rocks.

Yardwork ...................................58
L-M Monhegan 42 commuter;
Morris Ocean Series 48 cruiser;
Hybrid-electric aquarium study boat.
Fetching Along ............................62
Cruising pushes us; we need pushing.

Final passages ............................64
Dr. Grave Klein-MacPhee, Richard S. Libby, Clifford
R. Alley, Jr., William L. Mullins, James Joseph Miles;
Hugh P. Chandler, Elizabeth Robinson.

Tides .....................................67-69

Distribution............................75-77

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTIONS

The Gift Locker .......................39-42

Boating URLs..........................70-71
Our hat is off to...
Yankee Marina and Boatyard is this month’s featured Points
East distribution point. See page 77 for
more information.

.COM

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On the cover: “Silent night, holy night. . . . .” This photo of the Cape Neddick Light,
on the north side of a high rock known as The Nubble, captures the spirit of the season.
Photo by Susan Cole Kelly
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Points East December 2014

5

EDITOR’S PAGE/Nim Ma rsh

Nor’easters and Good Samaritans
good, old-fashioned three-day nor’easter roared Jean was towing a 100-foot barge at the end of a 775across New England Wednesday through Fri- foot hawser.
day, Oct. 22-24. Beaufort-scale gale- and stormThe Greenport, Long Island-based fishing vessel
force winds caused flooding and power outages on land Merit, fishing for scup out of Newport with a crew of
and several mayday situations at sea.
three, should have been snug in her berth in Newport;
Torrential rain, hail, thunder and lightning, and however a gear breakdown kept her at sea, off Point
strong winds combined to leave some 9,000 Rhode Is- Judith, into the late afternoon. Her crew heard a mayland homes without electricday at 5:54 p.m., but a halfity. The North Shore of
hour after the signal was
Boston was hit particularly
issued, the tug sank in 85
hard, with Beverly (Mass.)
feet of water, and the crew
Airport logging an astrotook to a life raft. Another
nomical 6.13 inches of rain
vessel, the Tradition, had
in two days. Gusts up to 50
picked up the sinking tug’s
mph blew down trees, power
position and relayed it to
lines and limbs, which
the Merit, which set a
knocked out power in that
course toward the coordicity. Milton, Brockton and
nates, not knowing the tug
Gardner, Mass., also rehad sunk. “Once the second
ceived more than five inches
call was out, there was no
Map courtesy National Weather Service
of rain, according to the Namore hearing from those
The
storm
Oct.
23,
11
a.m.
to
8 p.m.: Green signifies 35tional Weather Service.
guys,” the Merit’s skipper,
The southern Maine coast 45 mph winds; yellow, 45-55; red (at top), 55-65.
Sidney Smith, was rereportedly was hammered
ported to have said in an
by violent-storm-force blasts. After laying waste to Oct. 24 “Providence Journal” article by Donita Naylor.
New England, some parts of the Canadian Maritimes
The Merit’s crew spotted the barge, but not the tug,
were slammed by wind gusts exceeding 50 mph and and Smith reportedly was concerned that, in the low
more than four inches of rain. By Thursday morning, visibility caused by the strong wind and the rain, his
more than 44,000 electric customers throughout the vessel might foul the towline or run over crew in the
Northeast had been without power for varying lengths water. Finally, according to Naylor’s excellent news
of time.
story, the life raft – three men in it, one in the water,
By Wednesday, Oct. 22, the Rhode Island coast was hanging on – was spotted, and the Merit’s deckhands,
being pummeled by winds gusting close to 60 mph, Gary Detrick and Ernie Nicholson, with help from the
and the Coast Guard’s Southeast New England Com- skipper, hauled the tug’s crew aboard. The last
mand Center, in Boston, was fully engaged with nu- crewmember reportedly was brought aboard as a
merous distress signals, notably two calls off Rhode Coast Guard vessel arrived at the scene to escort the
Island’s shoreline. The first came from the 55-foot sail- Merit to Point Judith.
ing vessel Swept Away (home port unknown) with five
“Everybody’s lucky,” Capt. Smith was quoted in the
aboard, which lost propulsion in Rhode Island Sound, “Journal” story “If you’re that close, you gotta go. If I’m
and whose crew could not lower the sails in the high in the water someday, I hope somebody comes and gets
winds. The 85-foot cutter Tiger Shark, from Newport, me.”
was deployed, but she was unable to get the sailboat
“I was lucky enough to be near the guy calling mayin tow in heavy seas. Tiger Shark radioed the 100-foot day.”
cutter Sitkinak, out of Bayonne, N.J., which got a
Yes, a good, old-fashioned three-day nor’easter
hawser on Swept Away and towed her into Newport.
roared across New England Oct. 22-24, but there
Wednesday evening, a distress signal was received wasn’t much good about it. The exceptions were the
from the 55-foot tug Karen Jean, with a four-man crew, selfless acts of Good Samaritans, who, like generations
not far from Point Judith. The tug reported that the of seamen before them, adhered to the traditional laws
she was taking on water, listing seriously, and in dan- and precedents of “they that go down to the sea in
ger of capsizing in eight-foot seas, 60-mph winds, and ships” – the ethic that requires all of us, within reason,
61-degree seawater. To make matters worse, the Karen to come to the aid of fellow mariners in distress.

A

6

Points East December 2014

editor@pointseast.com

Letters
1948). It’s titled “Rooftops of St. George’s, Bermuda,
done in November 1910. Relatively unknown for many
years, his works are now gradually being rediscovered.
“Well, not exactly. It’s a photo taken by me in November 2010 in St. George’s. I do a lot of work with Photoshop. You can take a photo (has to be the ‘right’ photo)
and apply a transformation to it that makes it look like
a watercolor (or oil, or palette knife, or charcoal). And
if the photo is ‘right,’ and you fiddle with the parameters correctly, you can actually get something nice out
of it that people will think is an honest-to-gosh painting.”

Did Uffa copy Chapin’s Moby Dick?
Photo by Capt. Mike Martel

No, this is not a recently discovered work by forgettable luminist C. Dabbitt Butterworth, but rather the Photoshop
dabblings of our Capt. Mike.

New England Autumn reverie
Early morning. I step outside to low, scudding clouds,
and a strong breeze coming across the land from the
distant sea, smelling of sweet brine. It is warmer than
it ought to be, quite humid, and I pause for there is
strangeness in the air, a feeling of someplace else. It
sparks my senses, tickles my memory; it is a memory
of a time in the past.
After barely a minute, I know what it is; it is
Bermuda in November, and a gale is building. In my
mind’s eye, the big orange windsock atop the far hill
across the harbor is out straight; the palm trees are
being lashed by the wind where they stand in profile
and unprotected high on the hill above the northeast
end of St. George’s. It has rained during the night;
there is the scent of wet limestone, ancient coral, and
always the sea on this low island, a spot of land in the
midst of a wide, blue sea, a low archipelago that the
ocean’s winds blow across practically unhindered
without taking notice.
But no, I am instead here on the mainland, preparing to head off to the day’s work, another day like
many before it and many to come. The spirit is willing
to cast off all lines, but the flesh is obligated.
Capt. Michael L. Martel
Bristol, R.I.
Editor’s note: When we asked Capt. Mike about the
textures in this image of St. George’s, he wrote: “Are referring to that classic watercolor by the lesser known
American luminist C. Dabbitt Brushworth (1870www.pointseast.com

I do not know much about Pilgrim-class sloops or the
Chapin boat (Editor’s Page, October/November,
“Where Are They Now?”) but the boat in the picture
labeled Whale-back sloop sure looks to me to be an
Atalanta sloop, a 26-footer designed by Uffa Fox and
built in the 1950s. If it is not, it sure is remarkably the
same. I know because I sailed one for many years in
the early ’70s.
I was informed that its look came after British Naval
lifeboats that were air dropped into the North Sea during WWII. It was designed to be a trailerable cruiser
and to take mudflats with retractable double iron
keels and rudder. Mine had an Atomic Four engine,
center cockpit, and only drew just over two feet with
everything up, which gave us great access to interesting gunkholes.
The hull was built of cold-molded mahogany plywood, and the design had great features like rolling
boom and Bakelite winches. The look was intriguing
to many, and it got us several dinner invites as we
cruised from Marblehead to Maine for several summers. Maybe Uffa copied the whaleback sloop named
Moby Dick.
Marc Lorraine
Rockport Maine
Editor’s note: Thanks Marc. We have not yet received any Moby Dick sightings. While this isn’t the 42foot Moby Dick, you bring up some interesting and
relevant design features that apply to both boats. And
let’s not forget Cy Hamlin’s and E. Farnum Butler’s 25foot Maine-built, reverse-sheer Amphibi-Con, originally
cedar-strip-planked and edge-glued to oak frames in
the 1950s. And the 37-foot reverse-sheer Controversy,
developed by Mount Desert Yacht Yard, Hull No. 1 of
which was launched in 1953 for the owner of the yard,
one Farnham Butler.
Points East December 2014

7

It’s a sad time at Marston’s Marina
This is our last weekend of the marina season. We
close up shop on Oct. 15. I’ll turn off the shore power
the next day, and then we’ll be flat out for two weeks
pulling the docks. Keeps me very depressed. As you
know, I’d much rather it was spring and we were
putting the marina back in the water.
Tuna guys are having one last fling. I heard today
the fish are just offshore, and a crowd of boats is having a field day. I know of four boats from our place that
are out, and one of them has already boated a tuna.
I’ve had a couple of pump-outs today. Seems like the

last step before hauling the boat or unstepping the
mast is to get the holding tank pumped out. In between, we’re dodging some rain showers. Tomorrow,
however, is supposed to be sunny and clear. Should be
another busy day hauling boats.
Randy Randall
Marston’s Marina
Saco, Maine
Correction: In the October/November editorial, entitled “Where Are They Now,” the editor alluded to a
cruise along the Finland coast in 2012. That wonderful
trip occurred 10 years earlier, in 2002.

MYSTERY HARBOR/And th e win ner is...

Many fine short sails are from Mystery Harbor
The Mystery Harbor is
Marion looking out toward
Ram Island and Meadow
Island. Also known as Sippican Harbor. The first
year we had our Freedom
30 Salacia, we kept her in
Sippican Harbor while
waiting for a mooring to
clear in Marblehead.
Our son was pre-school
then, so we did a lot of
short sails. It is a great
place for daysails. We
would go to Pocasset, Quisset or Hadley Harbor with
ease. Overnight cruises to Woods Hole or Cuttyhunk
were a breeze. Speaking of a breeze, the afternoon

winds were lively and fun
to sail in as long as you
were heading up Buzzards
Bay and frequently had a
reef in.
The entrance to the harbor is not difficult. Coming
from the north, round Bird
Island. Coming from the
south, watch the buoy off
Converse Point. Follow the
buoys and definitely don’t
cut them near Ram Island.
The entrance takes a 90degree turn near Ram Island, so watch your buoys
carefully. There is a channel down the middle of the
MYSTERY HARBOR, continued on Page 11

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8

Points East December 2014

editor@pointseast.com