September in Maine: The skies were blue, the air cool and crisp, and the wild waters beckoned, but the Harwood’s vessel was on the hard for a refit. Solution: the seagoing version of “the next man up.”

September 2023 By Jack Farrell A midsummer southeaster was lashing our coast with six-foot waves, 30-knot gusts and sideways rain measured in inches falling per hour. The tourist boats had all been canceled for the day, leaving the Shining Star, our 46-foot Mussel Ridge lobster boat, the only link fromRead More

From Boston’s Inner Harbor, head west, leave “Old Ironsides” to starboard, pass under some bridges, transit the Charles River locks, and you’re in a seven-mile, navigable stretch of an historic estuary.

. . . hath a man for his boat than when he restores her two different times, from square one, two decades apart. Groves did this with his Hinckley Pilot 35 My Girl, with late drama, and he doesn’t regret a single minute of it.

Each Maine island with a year-round population is distinct from the others; the most remote of these is Matinicus, some 10 miles out to sea from Vinalhaven. I cruised there, and found a community with a singular character.

Part 4: The big day was here. We were taking the J/30 Mojo down the East River, through Manhattan, and into New York Harbor, bound for our oddly amorphous destination, the Statue of Liberty.

East of Schoodic Point: It’s where some say the real Maine cruising experience begins, and where this intrepid New Hampshire resident headed on his powerboat to battle fog, tide and foul weather.

In Part 2, the intrepid Cape Cod couple worked their way deeper into Long Island Sound, destination Lady Liberty, motoring and sailing in light air from Block Island to Branford, Conn., via The Race and Niantic Bay to check in with an old friend. Their next leg takes Mark and Diana to Black Rock Harbor, 22 miles farther west, for another cruising social call.

One of many sea tales to be spun about a century-old 72-foot Maine schooner that left wakes across the Atlantic, to the Caribbean, and into the South Pacific. This one concerns a wild, 500-mile delivery.

Returning from Roque Island in our outboard canoe, I asked Doris if she’d like to visit other Maine islands. “Not in this unstable boat,” she replied. And here’s where this speedy day-cruise tale begins.