We stayed two nights in Newport. When we arrived, we took a mooring rather than attempt to set the anchor in a crowded harbor during foul weather. But the next day, we slipped the mooring and motored around Goat Island, which separates Newport Harbor on the east from Narraganset Bay on the west. There is a low bridge that connects Goat Island and the Newport mainland, so you can't take a sailboat with a mast directly north from the harbor.
Once around and off the north point of Goat Island, we set anchor in a stiff breeze just outside a small mooring field. Because the wind was from the southeast, we were quite protected by the mainland and the island. Should the wind have veered to the west, we would have been exposed.
But the wind stayed steady throughout the day and into the night, and all the boats on anchor -- a half dozen of us -- rode comfortably.
We were the next to the smallest boat. This one was the smallest.

The boat belonged to a middle-aged woman and two teenaged girls, from our observations. It was equipped for long passages but was not a vessel I'd choose to cross oceans. That may well have been what the ladies had done, however. We never got to find out, because the next morning -- Wednesday -- we left for our next stop, Stonnington, CT, which became Monica's favorite port.