Sailing Maine with Sula

by David and Heather Churcher on 6 Sep 2010 Melbourne cruising sailors David and Heather Churcher are sailing their 2001 Discovery yacht Sula, currently on the coastline of Maine, in the USA. Each brings us their version of their experiences with lobster feasts and classic wooden yachts regattas:

Heather's story:

Let me paint you a picture of Maine: 5500 miles of convoluted coastline, 6200 granite islands (only 15 of which are inhabited year round), billions of pine trees, and squillions of mosquitoes and 'no-see-ums.'

In years gone by the granite from Maine was hauled down south by schooners to build the U.S. Treasury building, the U.S. House of Representatives, the New York Stock Exchange and Post Office, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and the Brooklyn and George Washington Bridges.
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Obviously you don’t have to travel very far each day to find a new anchorage, but weaving between Maine’s 3 million lobster buoys (and the occasional seal impersonating a black one) does add a certain amount of strain. The white lobster pots that fly away as you approach (i.e. seagulls) are the best. You can choose to anchor at a deserted pine
covered island or at a small lobstering community.

There are plenty of trails to ancient lighthouses, but most are along tracks lined by wild and ripening raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and cranberries, so walking is time consuming around here. Some of the communities have active repertory companies and we saw the Acadia Repertory Theatre perform Noel Coward’s 'Fallen Angels' in their 38th Summer Season. At Winter Harbour we had lunch at the 120 year old yacht club which is only open for 2 months of the year. I was rather taken by the décor – a granite fireplace and mooseheads on the wall.
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There are many towns in Maine where the wealthy people from down south have built their grand 'summer cottages' on prime coastal real estate, but on Mt Desert Island the powerful summer residents banded together to purchase vast tracts of land which ultimately became the Acadia National Park in 1929. Now you can cycle on 50 miles of 'carriageways,' complete with 17 granite bridges, which John D. Rockefeller built alongside the lakes and mountains of the park so he could drive his carriage in peace and quiet away from automobiles. Our bikes are paying their way – we have now ridden over 600 km on them.
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We have now been as far 'Downeast' as we intend to go, about 30 miles from the Canadian border. 'Downeast' is a sailing term that relates back to the days when the ships from Boston were able to run downwind with the prevailing winds as they traveled in a north-easterly direction. The area is remote and not visited so frequently by yachtsmen, as evidenced by the copious numbers of mussels just waiting to be harvested.

We continue to meet wonderful people. Corning Townsend the Third at Wiscasset dinghied out to 'Sula' to offer us the use of his mooring and car, and invited us home for a dinner of mussels steamed in white wine and garlic, followed by lobster and then his wife Tita’s Wild Blueberry Pie, which was to die for! Corning is a Marine Engineer, so we asked him if he knew Duncan Maclean, who David sailed against in the Little America’s Cup. Corning and Duncan are best mates and in fact worked together for years!

[Sorry, this content could not be displayed]We have also bumped into the Charnley’s, the owners of Discovery Yachts, who built and owned 'Sula.' (You may recognize John from the Discovery55 Video on Youtube). They have sailed their first Discovery 50 Cat across
the Atlantic and are bound for the Annapolis Boat Show and then the Pacific. We have shared many meals, coffees and Rum Punches on the beautiful 'Sula' and 'Discovery Magic.'

Culinary Corner: Experience a Lobster Festival Before You Die!

Over here the lobster is called 'the cockroach of the sea!' In the past lobster has been strewn over the fields as fertilizer! Many of the lobstering communities hold an Annual Lobsterfest. We attended one at Frenchboro, a
small switched on community which recently campaigned to raise $3million to buy half the island as a conservation area rather than have it developed. (They had also taken on 13 Wards of the State a few years ago in order to keep their school open). For $20 we could listen to a live band as we enjoyed our meal of lobster, melted butter, bread, cole slaw, softdrink, and choice of home made pie (blueberry, raspberry, pecan, pumpkin or key lime). For an extra $5 you could have a second lobster! Why not? After lunch we moved onto Burnt Coat Harbour on the next island for their 'Clam Chowder Cook-off.' You pay $5 for a bowl in order to sample about 20 Chowders. You slip a $ note to your favourite Chowder Chefs and he with the most money wins the Annual Best Chowder.

We occasionally have Chick Pea Patties for dinner to stay in tune with the real world.

David's story:
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Beautiful Curves - From old sea dogs to young tars, you just can’t help but stare……

So many lovely boats in Maine, even the plastic ones 'look right' and if a boat looks right …. it probably is. Surrounded by such nautical beauty is a visual treat, the sight of all that varnished bright work is seductive…..and then the thought comes of just how much effort and WORK is required to keep it looking like that.

We had been alerted by Mike on the classic motor yacht 'Burma' that the Wooden and Classic Boat Races would be happening on Eggemoggin Reach in early August, that we would be welcome to 'observe,' but please don’t anchor your plastic ship in the middle of all the oak and teak as it would spoil the photos! We made being at this event one of our waypoints for our Cruising in Maine.

We arrived early afternoon the day before the race and anchored well away from the Wooden Boat School and Magazine mooring field in the lee of a pretty island. Well we anchored right on the end of the finish line for the feeder races and were treated to over a hundred incredible yachts coming over the line in a downwind spinnaker finish, and many of these boats are over one hundred years old. These guys may have old boats but they take their racing as seriously as those after the 'Auld Mug' [America’s Cup] and when you realize the money that has been spent to restore / maintain these curvaceous beauties it makes it all the more inspiring.

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There were a fleet of New York 40’s penned and built by Nathaniel Herreschoff around 1904; the vintage 100’ schooners such as Summer Wind which had just undergone a 10 million dollar restoration and then been donated by the owner to the King’s Point Naval College for use in training Midshipmen; Legends like Ticonderoga and White Eagle …..You can get on the net to have a look at these but you probably won’t find 'Two Dogs,' the gaff rigged topsail Falmouth Cutter that was sailed by four likely tars including Yours Truly to fourth place [out of the silver ware by 2 seconds]. Now this is a full keeled, heavy displacement classic yacht design that Stott, our maxillofacial surgeon turned lobster fisherman [cause that’s what he always wanted to be doing anyway..] friend had built in the late 90’s, so a new boat built the old way. Stott single handed it cruising down the US East Coast in 2009, which is pretty special in a gaff rigged cutter with up to 5 sails to manage….just as well he took his dog with him to help out!
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I was recruited at the last minute as the tactician / navigator. Stott was very clear. He expected me to keep him off the rocks, round the right marks, win the start and keep our air clear as we fought with boats 2-3 times our 32ft length…..So I said sure Stott, but why are you making my job so easy? Why not add in photography, cook and topsail
trimmer….He said O.K. … Just do it. Well Stott, Corning, Ron and I proceeded to nail the start, kept our air clear with some prodigious use of the rules of sailing when being mugged by large wind blocking clouds of sail, cut some of the rocks so fine you could have stepped ashore and got back on board after the tack, trimmed the sails to perfection and
sailed a faultless race.

So how come we only got fourth? Well the golden rule of sailing was at play…. What’s the golden rule of sailing you ask? The man with the gold makes the rules of course….and our handicap was not nearly as kind to us as those of some of the yachts we beat or the big boys 2-3 times our size. We all had one of the best days on the water any of us could remember, followed up by Stott’s multiple rounds of rum post race while anchored and watching the fleet finish in the warm Maine afternoon sun.
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Maine Schooners abound in these waters, and what a sight they are under full sail. Obviously, if God in her wisdom had meant us to have fiberglass boats, she would have grown fiberglass trees…… but it seems agnostics and
atheists spend less time sanding and painting and more time sailing! It pays to think about this carefully, as choosing what sort of boat is right for you should get to the core of a sailor’s spirituality.
What I have witnessed in Maine is that almost inevitably it’s her beautiful curves that will take your breath away [and all rational thought too].

An old salt will tell you that 'Like a woman, the rigging costs more than the hull.'

David