We headed out of Portsmouth for a trip down the coast about 9:30. We couldn’t leave too early since we couldn’t pick up our reserved mooring in Newburyport until after 12, if we left too late, the tide would be too low to enter the Merrimack River.
The wind was from the east about 12, we just used the Genoa to pull us down the two hour trip to the river entrance. The swells were running three to five feet, and I didn’t want to be fighting them while trying to take the main down, and I knew it would be ill advised to attempt the river entrance with sails up. The entrance was as expected, the tide was pushing the current strongly out of the river, the rollers coming in from the ocean were fighting against it and the sea bottom went from 90 feet to 13 feet in under a quarter mile.... we knew this wasn’t going to be fun.
The boat did great going through the waves. The waves stood up high behind the boat, a few even touched the dinghy which was hung high on the davit across the stearn, one wave broke on the back of the boat sending a few inches of water into the cockpit. At one point the boat got up to 12.4 knots surfing down a wave. I was busy keeping the boat perpendicular to the waves and within 10 minutes, we were through. It was probably the roughest ride we’ve had on the trip to date. We considered waiting for the tide to change, and for the water level to rise again but that would be another five hours. In talking to our friends we are here in Newburyport to see, those conditions aren’t uncommon and the locals are used to managing it, but in many cases, passing through is for boats in the 40+ foot range when large swells oppose the current.
The harbormaster pointed us to our mooring, our friend Rick saw us come into the harbor from his boat. He dinghied us in and we were off to their home to spend a night or two on dry land - what a treat!