Transatlantic on
M
averickk averic 3,000 Miles
from Newport, Rhode Island, to Cowes, England, in 18 Days by George Day, Boston Station, Buzzards Bay Post
T
he first glimpse of the bright flashing light from Sankaty Head lighthouse on Nantucket’s eastern shore came into view soon after midnight. Every seven-anda-half seconds the white beam swept across the sea that lay between us and the island, giving us a positive visual bearing of where we were in relation to the dangerous shoals than lie all along Nantucket’s southeastern coast. Many ships have foundered here and we did not want to be one of them. Aboard Maverick, my friend Steve McInnis’s (BOS/NBP) Hanse 505 sloop, we were just getting into the rhythm of our night watches. It was our first night at sea after departing from Newport, Rhode Island, earlier that day. There were five of us aboard: our skipper Steve, Mark Gabrielson, Henry DiPietro, young Drew Augustine, and me. Between us, we had many ocean crossings and offshore passages, so the sense 18
voyages
of excitement that always pervades a first night at sea was somewhat tempered by long experience as we settled down and got on with the business of sailing offshore. We still had 3,000 miles to go to our destination in Cowes, Isle of Wight, England. All the first day we had sailed east across the banks south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Fishing boats were dragging their nets all around us, and sea gulls followed them in hopes of a meal. Out there on the continental shelf, two large wind farms have been approved for development, and we saw several survey ships gathering data on depths and bottom configuration. In the years ahead, this whole region of ocean will be populated with giant wind turbines that use only the wind to generate electricity. We are sailors who travel on the wind, so the whole enterprise makes perfect sense.
