(All text and pictures contained in this article are the exclusive right of Mark Smith and cannot be duplicated without his written permission.  Contact Mark via Mikhaya@pearson35.com)

      Great boats make for great adventures- and most importantly allow you, "to live and tell about it."  But in addition to surviving, having faith and confidence in your boat contributes to a security and calmness in dealing with tense or stressful adventures.  

     My Pearson 35, Wind Kiss (1980: Hull #478) is a great boat.   Mid-way into my second season, my wife, two sons and I headed out of Barnegat Bay New Jersey for an 8 day trip to Connecticut.   Mid-way through the trip, in Stratford CT, my wife and kids returned to New Jersey by car and my brother-in-law Ken joined me on the return trip.   Ken is an accomplished sailor having sailed for many years off the coasts of Texas, Connecticut, and the blue waters of the Bahamas, Florida and the Caribbean.   Ken has sailed with me before on Wind Kiss, so the boat knows Ken and Ken knows the boat !

     Most of the trip was spent under a stalled front which had sat along the east coast for many days producing rain, humidity, clouds and some wind.  Unfortunately, we spent most of the trip trying to find that elusive wind, but like a Disney movie, it had only rained at night while we slept.

     Wind Kiss (picture above) in our temporary port.  Cleaning out the anchor locker, filling up water and doing some small chores occupied our late afternoon after finding some wind during a 4 hr. afternoon sail- spent mostly circumnavigating Hart Island just outside of Manhasset Bay. 

     The east coast power outage had occurred a few hours before- but didn’t seem to affect us much.  We took cockpit showers, cooked on the grills, had refrigerated water and beer, and ran all the electric we needed on our house 12-volt system.  One of our companion boats had a 12 volt blender, so it was "Margaritas on the dock," while we infrequently listened to the radio and learned the extent of the blackout of 2003.

The above picture is a hoax circulated on the net

shortly after the blackout in the North East.  There is

no such Satellite as the GeoStar and the actual

blackout area was more widespread.  I just liked the image.
 

Friday, August 15.

    With downtown Manhattan behind me, we head for Sandy Hook NJ, where we’ll anchor behind the breakwater at Atlantic Highlands.   As we approach the Verrazano Bridge, I kept a careful lookout for the huge freighters and tankers entering New York Harbor; their size makes them easy to spot in good visibility. 

The entire area has plenty of deep water, so its just a matter of keeping an accurate awareness of where all the traffic is and where they’re going.

Saturday sunrise.

     A warm and friendly sunrise greeted us as we raised sail and headed north towards Sandy Hook from Atlantic Highlands.  At Sandy Hook, we’ll take a big turn and head south along the NJ coast.  Friday night had been spent behind the breakwater at the Highlands at anchor and had probably been the best night of the trip.

Early afternoon Saturday, Aug 16.

    My brother-in-law Ken at the wheel. The wind had finally been good to us after several days of lack-luster conditions. We were cruising south from Sandy Hook, NJ averaging around 6 knots., with one ft seas and generally clear skies.  We had checked the NOAA forecast regularly for the past 24 hrs and knew the possibility of thunderstorms by the afternoon.

     We were motor-sailing and moving about 7.1 knots, according to the GPS. We basically got slightly in-front of the storm as it hit- our two other sailing companions (both in Catalinas) got the brunt of the storm.  We furled the genoa, and went slightly off head-to-wind, to keep the main from flogging.  It worked great.  My hand-held wind gauge showed about 30 knots of wind *before* the main blast hit, and I ducked underneath the dodger.  Wind Kiss was a steady boat in that assault!!  The seas were basically flat but very churned up.  The storm passed in about 15 mins or so after dumping huge amounts of rain.  Visibility was about 50' at the worst of it.  The thunder and lightening had not been too bad- maybe half a dozen very loud "bangs".

     We also put a first reef in the main, and then continued heading towards Barnegat Inlet. (We hadn't had time to put the reef in prior to the first storm.)  Sure enough, a 2nd storm appeared in about 10 mins.  This one looked bigger, and we were not at all going to get an edge of it like the previous storm.  We felt more at ease this time, due to the incredible stability the boat had just displayed.  Our only fear was the lightening.  This storm had a lot of bolts clearly visible as it approached.  We shut down ALL the electronics and kept the engine at about half-speed.  As the storm approached, we changed course to get onto 'near-head-to-wind'.  The storm hit, and it was much stronger than the first.  Lighting all around. The sound was deafening- we had to shout in order to hear each other.  For the first time in my life, I felt as though I was inside a thunderstorm, not just underneath it.

 A few extra strong blasts heeled the boat over a bit, but not too bad.  Once again, the boat felt incredibly stable and safe.

     I kept glancing at my watch, thinking "OK, time for this to ease up", but it kept going at at a very strong fury. 15 mins passed, then 20, then 30.  As the time wore on, I got more nervous about the lightening.  Finally, the storm appeared to ease a bit after about 40 mins.

     A couple of lightening strikes seemed VERY close, and it seemed like I could actually feel the heat of the bolt of one strike- perhaps just the adrenaline pumping!

     The storm cleared and we found our friends and made a very calm and gentle entrance into Barnegat Inlet and back to home port at Mariner's Marina.

Our friends told us back on dock that one bolt had appeared to hit the water a few yards from us....so maybe I did feel the heat of one of the bolts.

Sail'n away on a Wind Kiss !