The guys at Tefal and Dyson have research laboratories where they can invent cutting edge products. Dyson came up with a concept of being able to see the dirt inside your vacuum cleaner and they sold like hot cakes, Tefal were the first to put a little steam engine inside an iron and call it imaginatively ‘The Steam Iron’. While at sea we magically fell into either the Dyson or Tefal testing ground where they are putting their new ‘Sea Iron’ to the test, or at least that’s the only way we can explain how the oceans were as flat as glass.

With the sun peeking over the distant horizon in Provincetown, we thought that we were the only people to be witnessing such a sensational sunrise. Once out into the ocean we couldn’t have been more wrong. They say ‘the early bird catches the worm’ but outside Provincetown it was more like the ‘pre dawn fisherman hooks the catch’. Fishing boats were everywhere plying their wares along the deep ocean trench just yards from Provincetown and all the way out to the end of the Cape.

The fishermen were not the only creatures after the fruits of the sea. Again and again we saw spouts of water on the horizon and again and again the smells of rotting fish washed over us. The splooms and shocking halitosis could mean only 1 thing. Whales.

Minke’s, Humpback and Right whales surfaced from the deep and broke the glassy smooth surface of the water on all sides of us. As quickly as they came they disappeared showing us their huge dorsal fins and tails and leaving us with the impression that Ruffian really is a little boat on a big ocean.

On the Dyson and Tefal flat water Ruffian sped along as if on a conveyor belt. No swell rocked her and the complete absence of waves made her feel as steady as a cruiseliner. We could have thought that we were stationary if it wasn’t for the numbers on the speedo and the loads in the spinnaker sheets. This was effortless sailing at its best, the autopilot was silent and the kite so well behaved we could have been passengers on the Queen Mary.

With darkness the kite was not the only thing that dropped, the temperatures also plummeted. In a flash we went from shorts and t-shirts to thermals, rompa suits, fleeces, gloves, scarves and even woolly hats. Wearing woolly hats felt just so wrong in the middle of June, but with daybreak and our first sighting of hundreds of islands all shrouded in dawn mist, it suddenly felt right and worth the pain.

The cold night created perfect conditions for Iain’s slight cold to develop and reach the exalted heights of full blown ‘man flu’ status. Man flu, (aka the common cold for girls) can prove to be near fatal in men, and so Fiona, armed with the knowledge, nursed Iain through the night and into the next day.

We now knew we had arrived the waters of Maine as we started sailing along a slalom course marked out by lobster pots that are conveniently placed every 4 or 5 meters. We weaved our way through them awarding ourselves top marks for both speed and style, with only the occasional one bouncing its way along our hull and reducing our scoreline.

The call of our destination, Rockport, wasn’t in the usual form of a great anchorage, it was Tom Young et al who we’d said goodbye to in Cuttyhunk last year. There in the middle of the harbour was a mooring ball with our, well his, name on it and so after 150 miles of effortless sailing Ruffian was safe and secure and we had a night of fun and frolics with ‘The Youngs’ in-front of us.

Someone has stolen all the clouds. We like that.


Why do fishing boats always want the same piece of water we are on?


The seas so flat they make freshly plastered walls jealous.


Land ho. Oh no that’s another whale.


Geordie lad is up once again.


Fiona cooks up another feast from the bilges.


You only ever get sunsets like this in northern climes.


Nights are so dark that the only light is from our instruments.