The trip south started off right on schedule. We departed Yarmouth, ME Monday morning, May 21, 2001 as planned. I had a two other crew members on board to start the trip. After a couple of hours of motorsailing, it was noticed that the engine temperature gauge was starting to climb, so I immediately shut down the engine. The problem appeared to be in the raw water cooling circuit so we put in at Kennebunkport and picked up a mooring so we could troubleshoot the problem. After a couple of hours it was determined that the raw water pump seal was leaking which allowed air to be sucked into the system. Not wanting to get involved with pressing new bearings into the pump body and replacing seals, I opted to replace the pump and save the rebuild for a later time.

The next day I rented a car and we drove to Portland, ME to purchase a new pump from the Westerbeke distributor. That afternoon, we installed the new pump and ran the engine under load (tugging on the mooring line in reverse) to confirm that we indeed had the problem solved. By this time it was late afternoon, so we decided to remain on the mooring overnight and get an early start the next morning.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful and we were fortunate enough to have northeast winds most days allowing for lots of offwind sailing. We experienced no delays due to weather, which was quite amazing for this time of year. Jim had to leave us in Gloucester, MA so we were down to a crew of two (David and I) until the next crew change at Old Greenwich, CT. Upon arrival in Old Greenwich David had to depart and return to Maine. At this point I was joined by my son Sean for the remainder of the trip. He had taken the train from VA to meet me.

The following is a very brief log showing ports of call as well as distance and time run as computed by the GPS receiver.