This granite breakwater creates a critical harbor of refuge for Gosport Harbor on Star Island in the Isles of Shoals. Photo by Jack Farrell
Spring 2023
By Jack Farrell
When my passion to become a respectable sailor was at its peak many years ago, I was a voracious consumer of the practical literature of the sea. While I spent my summer weekends at the self-directed school of hard nautical knocks, my winter evenings were devoted to the instructional works of seasoned sailors in the hope of avoiding catastrophe in the season to come. Over the years, I developed a library of useful books on the subject, to which I still occasionally refer.
As the boats got successively larger, the stakes rose accordingly. Afternoon daysails within sight of the harbor soon turned to overnight cruises, and eventually to extended trips. Cruising guides and books about offshore sailing in storm conditions found their way to my shelf with titles like “Heavy Weather Sailing” (Adlard Coles’ post mortems on a score of cruises in extreme weather, some ending in disaster), “Once is Enough” (Miles Smeeton’s tale of being pitchpoled twice in a 46-foot ketch off Cape Horn) and “The Serpent’s Coil,” Farley Mowat’s telling of three legendary hurricanes and the men who endured them at sea.
In much the same way as I feel about rattlesnakes and Great White sharks, I am at the same time terrified and fascinated by hurricanes and big ocean storms. I still can recall, with a sense of dread, my father’s observation of a foreboding yellow sky over our rented cottage at Marblehead as a hurricane made for the coast as we hauled our treasured Boston Whaler up the beach. Sailing friends and I in the early days would make plans to secure the boats should a hurricane threaten a direct hit. Ideas ranged from pleading for a proper haul out to staying aboard on the mooring with the engine running to running up a tidal creek in the bay to ground out in the mud until the storm had passed.
The venerable “Eldridge Tide and Pilot Book” has for years featured historical hurricane tracking charts, detailed advice on navigating around a hurricane if caught out, and precautions to take if a storm strikes while in port. I think it was in “Eldridge” (though I can’t seem to locate the reference today) where I read the story many years ago of a small yawl caught offshore of Cape Ann in 1952 in the teeth of a building southerly driven by the approach of Hurricane Carol (a storm so dangerous its name has since been retired from circulation). Beating back to Gloucester would have been impossible. Reaching for the meager protection of the abandoned breakwater project at Rockport would have been perilous with big seas on the beam. Shelter at Gosport at the Isles of Shoals was nearly 20 miles away, but almost dead to leeward. The only reasonable option was to “shorten down to your smallest jib and scud for the harbor of refuge at the Shoals.”
The words themselves evoke the danger and excitement of the scene. Scud: “small shreds of clouds driven rapidly along under a mass of storm clouds; to run before a gale with little or no sail set.” The Coast Guard defines harbor of safe refuge as “a port, inlet or other body of water normally sheltered from heavy seas by land in which a vessel can navigate and safely moor.”
Coast Guard regulations for many charter boats on coastal routes limit navigation to “not more than twenty miles from a harbor of safe refuge.” The run to the Shoals before Hurricane Carol would have tested this limit in the extreme. Some shelter would have been enjoyed for the first few miles if the boat could be worked under the lee of Cape Ann. But as the seas ran unleashed in the winds that reached over 100 miles an hour as the land receded astern, the conditions would have been increasingly horrific for the two or three hours it must have taken to cross. With Gosport’s refuge nearly in sight just beyond the swaying Oceanic Hotel on Star Island, the little yawl would have made her way past the frightening lee shore of White Island, turning to port into the thoroughfare where the waves are always steeper as they funnel through the gap between the islands. Avoiding towering breakers on the islands to port and starboard, as well as around Halfway Rock in between them, the little yawl would have finally rounded up to starboard and into the harbor under the shelter of Star Island. The islands and the breakwater would have provided relief from the huge waves at least.
I weathered a more modest hurricane in Gosport Harbor in Aloft in 2011. While the seas pounded the outside ledges in the 70mph gusts and drove spray hundreds of feet to the walking path on Star Island, the harbor was remarkably flat. The water around the boat was nearly covered in white foam, byproduct of the waves seething through gaps in the wall of the breakwaters. The huge granite slabs, up to 12 tons and more each, could be heard grinding against one another with the onslaught of the crashing waves.
The Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for maintaining our critical harbors of refuge and maintains a list of them. These harbors are chosen for their locations close to exposed waters, ease of access in adverse conditions and ability to provide shelter in a variety of adverse conditions. Examples in our region include Block Island, Point Judith, Nantucket, Hyannis, Provincetown, Gloucester, Richmond Island off Cape Elizabeth, Criehaven Harbor near Matincus, Carver’s Harbor on Vinalhaven and Buck’s Harbor at Machiasport.
Some of these provide natural protection, but most require the construction and maintenance of breakwaters and other measures.
Meanwhile, out at Star Island, the unofficial capital of the Isles of Shoals, the granite breakwaters creating the critical harbor of refuge at Gosport are set to undergo reconstruction beginning in April. The government estimate of the project cost is just under 10 million dollars. Throughout the winter I have been taking out contractors considering undertaking the project to survey the conditions. In past reconstructions, crane barges would moor along the breakwaters on the harbor side with enough reach to work the stones on the seaward side in relative calm. But environmental concerns now require that barges and other gear keep clear of the waters immediately inside the structure between Star and Cedar Island. The work must be undertaken from the breakwaters themselves or from the shores of the adjacent islands. Each of the contractors had a different approach to the process and logistics required to complete the job. A few withdrew from the competition after full consideration of the challenges. In addition to the logistics, wind and weather, the low bidder must meet government labor and procurement rules, the 500-page specification document and tight construction timelines. I have to wonder if 10 million dollars will be enough.
Ours is a culture steeped to a great degree in the tradition and language of the sea. The concept of the safe harbor has migrated into legal, financial and political language where it has acquired an implication of haven or sanctuary beyond mere security: a place to hide.
Reaching a safe harbor always brings a sense of relief at the end of a challenging voyage, and for some of us, even at the end of a quiet summer sail. Mark Twain encouraged us to go back to sea again soon. “Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
We’re drawn to the sea not for comfort, but for the variety of its beauty, its challenges and even its danger. In that light, the safe harbor plays a supporting role in the background, in place like life rafts and fire extinguishers, installed and maintained at considerable expense in hopes of never being required.
“When a great ship is in port and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.” (variously attributed to John Shedd, Clarissa Pinkola Estes and Albert Einstein)
Jack was the manager at Star Island for many years. He currently manages major construction and utility projects there and provides all-season boat service to the island (average 250 trips per year) for luggage, food, employees, supplies and guests. He also runs Seacoast Maritime Charters, LLC providing year-round private charter boat service and marine logistics to the general public, now in the Shining Star. He still enjoys cruising in his classic Ted Hood sloop, Aloft, and teaching skiing at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine.
