Voyage to St. Pierre
Another fantastic GB adventure
Ford Hall
The following trip report was provided by Ford Hall, Sr., President of Georgetown Yacht Basin and was originally published in the September 2006 edition of the Georgetown publication “Chatter That Matters”. The report describes another fantastic adventure that was achieved in a Grand Banks trawler. Think outside the box!
The five week round trip passage between Georgetown Harbor, Maryland and St. Pierre, France was a very successful and pleasant cruise aboard my boat P/V SASSAFRAS LADY, a 1979 42 foot Grand Banks trawler yacht. Here are the facts;
Nautical miles traveled – 2,215 nautical miles: Georgetown Harbor,Maryland to St. Pierre, France, round trip.
Engine Time, each engine 265.7 hours
Average speed 8 1/3 knots
Fuel consumed 1,614
Fuel consumption 6.1 gallons per hour
The concept in laying out the offshore route for this cruise was to cover the greatest distance in the least amount of time. The archipelago of St. Pierre and Miquelon is a part of France; i.e., the residents, about 7,000 people, are French citizens, read the Paris newspapers, vote in the French elections, speak French as their first language ( some speak English, especially the youngsters) accept Euro money, send their college students to France for their education; are located in North America, just 15 miles off the south coast of Newfoundland, Canada at N 46’ 47’ by W 56’08’, on the western edge of the famous Grand Banks fishing grounds. The archipelago is sovereign French soil.
From Georgetown Harbor, we traveled through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal south on the Delaware Bay to Cape May, N.J. the northbound offshore passage began at Cape May
- Cape May to Nantucket Island, Massachusetts
- Nantucket to Port Medway, Nova Scotia, Canada
- Port Medway to St. Pierre
- St. Pierre to Halifax, Nova Scotia
- Halifax to Wood’s Hole, Massachusetts
- Wood’s Hole to Cape May
Then, of course, the Delaware Bay and C&D canal back to Georgetown Harbor. Each of the offshore legs were about equal length, about a 44 hour passage each. There were five people aboard, so we divided up into watches with two people on watch, running the boat 24 hours per day. The watch coming on duty prepared the meals while the watch going off duty washed the dishes.
The furthest we were offshore was about 150 nautical miles off the coast of Maine and about 70 nautical miles offshore of New York City.
Unfortunately, we did not spot any whales but we saw lots of porpoises and a few seals and at Port Medway we saw a family of wild minks.
SASSAFRAS LADY ran very well. The few repairs made underway were minor. I want to thank Ralph and Thomas and their staff of highly skilled technicians for all the time expended to prepare SASSAFRAS LADY for this ambitious voyage. Especially, Jim Nafzinger for installation of the new electronics; Furuno Navnet (radar, chart plotter, GPS, depth finder, and sea water temperature) unit and the Furuno weather fax radio. Jim Nafzinger and Rich Walls for the installation of the new Mast and radar arch. Henry Long for the spring commissioning, fabrication and installation of the engines’ water cooled stainless steel exhaust elbows and installation of the Kahlenberg air horns.
I want to give my crew a very hearty THANK YOU for a job well done, maintaing a good sense of humor and positive attitude during the entire five weeks of running the boat together and being together on a 42 foot boat; Jackie and Jay Dolby, long time customers of Gerogetown Yacht Basin, Inc., and owners of the 40 foot Pearson Sloop, FINESSE. E.J. Wargo, long time customer of the Granary Marina and owner of the 30 foot Beneteau sloop, ELLIE and J.Helene Hall, Vice President of Georgetown Yacht Basin, Inc, northbound passage. Thomas Sisk, Vice President of Georgetown Yacht Basin, Inc., southbound passage.
The purpose of this voyage was to attend France ’s Independence Day celebration on July 14 a.k.a. Bastille Day which we accomplished. It is, of course, a national holiday, so there were lots of music performances, dancing circus type performers and fireworks. But like most boat trips, the most fun was just cruising aboard SASSAFRAS LADY.
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