Departed Haverhill Wednesday morning after a hot, humid night on the new (to
me) 40' Mainship.
14 miles on the Merrimack River was interesting with a lot of historical
buildings and boatyards, including Lowell's Boatyard, reported to be the
oldest boatyard in the US that is still operating. It was funny to watch
the guys opening the bridge (forget the name) by manually turning the
mechanism with a long, 14' pole with the guys walking in circles, two on
each end like an old, horse driven water pump.

The day was nice I went "outside" around Plum Island and Gloucester. It's
always a bit nerve racking with an unfamiliar boat, so the first hour or so
running at cruise was a constant eye exercise, checking oil pressure, engine
temps, etc.
After a while it was obvious that everything was working fine, so I played
with the GPS (Northstar), and autopilot system.

Set a course for the SA "Gong" buoy at Scituate and the autopilot tracked
perfectly to it. It was a bit rough in the open water north of Boston, but
flattened out to 2 footers as I got further south.

Got to Scituate at about 1:30 pm, docked, had a celebratory Sam Adams and
spent Wed and Thurs night on the boat.
Today I have to go back up to Haverhill to retrieve my truck. I'll probably
hang out in Scituate for the weekend and depart for Kingman Yacht Center on
the Cape on Monday or Tuesday.

It was nice to be out cruising again and starting to learn a new boat. It
handled the rough water fine, although it became obvious it didn't have the
displacement of the Navigator. But, all in all, I was impressed and happy
with it so far.

Eisboch