Night Sail

Sailors: Andrew, Ben, Lena, Sergey

The Osprey 

The Boston Sailing Center has some rules about scheduling. With the 4th of July coming up, we decided to proactively book a boat for that weekend. That meant, according to the rules, that we would not be able to make a reservation in advance for a couple of weekends. However, we were determined to find a way to sail this weekend even though every other member of the BSC would have priority over us.

Instead, Andrew called the BSC on Friday and asked them if they had anything available for our crew. They had the Osprey available for 7PM. Not the most obvious time to be sailing in the Boston Harbor, but we took it. Better to sail at night than to be grounded all weekend!

This would be my first nighttime sail. I was curious about how it would feel - and a bit concerned as well - but I knew I was in good hands. Our only constraint was that we had to return the boat by 8AM the following morning. Knowing Andrew, I knew that this exercise would entail navigating in the dark, without a chartplotter, guided only by the chart, the compass, and the light and sound patterns from the multiple buoys sprinkled around the harbor.

Coming out of the harbor at 7PM was easy. There was still plenty of light as the sunset was not until 8.25PM. Most ships were coming back, we were one of the few coming out. With a south / southwest wind filling our sails, it did not take much for us to leave the inner harbor. Andrew reversed the boat out of the slip and led us into the inner harbor, where we promptly raised the main and unfurled the jib and we were on our way to adventure.

There was plenty of light leaving the dock at 7PM

A south / southwest wind made it easy to leave the inner harbor. A very different sail from the previous Tuesday, when a northern wind forced us to tack several times before we could reach Long Island.

A gorgeous red-orange sunset over Boston waved us goodbye as we made our way to Spectacle Island and beyond. I was at the helm at the time so all I could see from the sunset (unless I turned around to look over the stern, which is not advised for very long when one is steering a boat!) were the pink and orange reflections on the cockpit! We tacked a couple of times to clear Castle Island and then fell off to find the pair of buoys that mark the entrance to Nubble Channel.

Sunset over Boston

I was still at the helm when, possibly navigating too close to Long Island, a weird phenomena happened: a motor boat passed us on our starboard which caused some waves - soon after, and even though the steering wheel was all the way to the left, the Osprey started to turn right - straight into Long Island! I shouted, “Andrew, it does not want to turn!!”. Andrew and Sergey quickly released the main sail and the jib sheet and the Osprey was responsive again - the sails had been over trimmed perhaps?

I was a bit distraught but we didn’t spend too much time confirming our hypothesis: soon after this episode, we saw something swimming in the water - a seal? Yep, it did look like a seal. As we were all distracted looking at the seal and grabbing our cameras, most of us failed to realize that the wind had died and we were helplessly drifting toward Long Island. Furthermore, we were pointing at the wrong pair of buoys marking Nubble Channel - with decisive action, Andrew turned on the engine and soon enough we were out of the shadow of the island and back in control of our ship. That was weird… and exciting!

I handed over the helm to Sergey after the crossing of Nubble as the world around us began to really get dark and mystical. To our left, streaks of light seemed to come up out of nowhere, as if a second sunset had just happened but in the wrong side of the world - a phenomena, I am told, that is called anticrepuscular rays. This turned out to be a night for weird physics phenomena.

The world started to darken around us

Sailing in the dark has the advantage, I discovered, of making one acutely aware of sounds - the water rushing past us, the roar of distant fishing boat and tugboat engines returning to the dock - and the many, many lights in the distance flashing green, red or white. 

We saw Boston Light immediately - it’s such a great beacon in Boston Harbor that we rarely lose the sight of it. It was about time to start really carefully reading the chart - we were looking for the lighted buoys. Some buoys flash green or red light following certain patterns such as 2 flashes followed by another flash with repetitions on a 4 second interval. The patterns and timing are annotated in the chart and help navigators know precisely where they are. Before GPS, this was the only way for sailors to navigate at night. We also saw in the distance the Minot Light pattern of 1, then 4, then 3 flashes every 30 seconds - a sequence that has earned it the name of “lover’s light” because 1-4-3 matches the number of letters in “I Love You”. According to LightHouseDigest.com, “many a romantic couple sat on the rocks or on beaches within sight of Minot’s Ledge being inspired by its visual message”.

As Sergey steered us toward Boston Light and beyond, I was sitting in the cockpit facing the stern and saw two or three lobster trap floats in our wake which felt dangerously close to having been captured by our keel or propeller. Lobster trap floats are impossible to see at night unless we’re really close to them. Having had the experience in the past of having a lobster trap float stuck in our propeller, I really did not want to experience that again… especially at night! Fortunately, we managed to escape the lobster trap obstacle course of Boston Harbor once more.

Boston Light as a beacon of hope in the dark

It was not yet 10PM when we cleared Boston Light - the wind was good so we decided to keep going. At this point, we had two options - either we turned around and came back home through Nubble Channel - or we kept going all the way to The Graves and then left into Nantasket Road. I asked Andrew why not go between the Roaring Bulls and The Graves - there seemed to be plenty of water. That’s another thing that is different while navigating at night - although we can clearly see obstacles during the day, the only way to know where we are at night is by looking for objects that emit light - buoys and lighthouses. Without them, it’s impossible to tell exactly how far from obstacles we are navigating, therefore the probability of running aground increases significantly.

I am embarrassed to admit that soon after we cleared The Graves and turned toward Nantasket road at around 11PM - knowing that the crew had everything under control - I felt a strong urge to just lie down in the salon and take a nap. Which - I am told - meant that I missed the best part of the trip*. Oh well, I will never know. By the time I came back to the cockpit, we were already by Deer Island and making our way into the inner harbor.

Taking a nap in the salon

The return to Boston was uneventful - the crew kept a watchful eye out for unlit buoys because those are barely visible. Unlit buoys mark the entrance to the inner harbor and they must be obeyed - not to mention one should avoid hitting them at all costs. Sergey stood at the bow looking for obstacles and helped us to avoid them. I was in the cockpit, shivering due to the cold (even though Andrew had gracefully lent me his jacket) and Ben was at the wheel. As we approached the inner harbour around 1AM, fireworks over Castle Island were set off welcoming us home. It was the end of another adventure and my first night sail!

Fireworks to welcome us back home

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*The most” interesting” and the most adrenaline part of the sail was (according to Ben) the difficulty to find navigation lights on the background of Boston lights