That was it. The engine was gone. The alternator has a pulley at one end over which a belt runs. The same belt that turns the alternator also turns the water pump. We knew of no way to take the alternator out of commission to run the engine without also eliminating the pump that brings the water to cool the engine.
The issue was settled. We had to sail.
But at 5 a.m, there was no wind. The sun was about to rise when we both decided just to nap for a while to see what would happen.
Some time later -- perhaps nine o'clock -- there was a faint breeze on my cheek, just a kiss. I went below and hauled the big red spinnaker bag on deck and began the arduous process of sorting out the tangled lines. Robin has a cruisng spinaker which has four permanently attached lines -- two sheets, one downhaul at the tack and one line to control the snuffer or chute scoop, a long skinny bag or tube that holds the sail together until you want to use it. Then you pull its control line and the bag rises to the top of the mast and the sail billows in the wind.
It was this snuffer line that I got tangled on the first try. But once I had that line where it should be, the sail went up and began pulling Robin ahead.
We weren't heading where we needed to go to get to Rockland, but we were going in the general direction of Maine, which was acceptable.


We were underway. On a trip that I had planned would be all sailing, no motoring, I was finally forced to live by that edict, and it was beautiful.
Slowly at first, Robin made way. Then she gained speed and strained at her lines. John frankly didn't think much of the lashings that held a block to the stern pulpit and which the spinnaker was now straining. To appease him, I added a few strands of thin line.
But soon enough, the spinnaker needed help from larger sails. The mainsail went up, and then the Genoa replaced the spinnaker and then the staysail joined its larger partner and in time we were pointing toward the mouth of Penobscot Bay, home to Rockland.
It was Monday, and we'd told folks at home that we were aiming to be in port this evening. But now there was no way. When the engine quit, we'd been 90 miles from Rockland. Now we were about 70 miles, and it would be well after dark when we approached the Penobscot. I wouldn't enter that rocky bay at night, so it would be at least Tuesday morning before we were ashore.
My concern was that someone -- Monica or John's wife, Fran, or our friend Tom Gilmore, who already was in Rockland -- would report to the Coast Guard that we were overdue.
I picked up the VHF radio microphone -- we were too far offshore for a cell phone connection -- and called:
"US Coast Guard, US Coast Guard, US Coast Guard, this is the sailing vessel Robin calling the US Coast guard, over."
At first, there was no reply. Then the Coast Guard came on the radio to the "vessel calling the US Coast Guard."
I explained our situation -- engine quit and we're under sail. Then I explained that I was concerned someone would report us overdue and asked if they could call Monica at work and let her know we were okay but would be in port when the wind got us there.
That's precisely what the Coast Guard did, and we sailed on.
To the south, the sky became overcast and we anticipated rain at least. But the easterly wind was steady and we were making four to five knots regularly.
As the sky darkened, we noticed to the east an unusual movement in the water. Then we saw the whale, larger than your average school bus, with a blow hole the size of a serving platter through which at intervals of perhaps 20 or 30 seconds we could hear his powerful breath, escaping in long blasts.
He was headed toward us, about 100 yards away, and we could look directly into the blowhole.
I reached for the camera, and we saw him turn to run parallel to our course, about 100 feet to the east.

I say he, although it certainly may have been a female and definitely was a humpback whale.
John, being older and wiser than I, knew what the whale was doing -- preparing to dive or sound. So I wasn't ready with the camera when he rolled forward and his huge tail came up in the air.
Then the sea was still and once again we sailed alone toward the north, with the light growing ever dimmer
It was about three o'clock in the morning and we could see various nautical lights -- buoys, lighthouses and so forth -- that indicated we were approaching the mouth of Penobscot Bay. I knew these waters in a passing way from three prior voyages to Maine, and I knew I didn't want to challenge any of the rocks that guarded the Bay's entrance, so I decided we should heave to. The current was running out of the bay, the wind now was from the east. And when we turned to let the staysail backwind against the mast, we were slowed to a drift of less than one mile an hour to the south. In the next three hours, until dawn, we would travel about 2.5 miles generally in a direction away from trouble. I went below and slept.
John, not entirely comfortable with my decision, stayed in the cockpit and kept watch on the various blinking and sweepling lights.

We were delayed in our departure on Sunday morning because we wanted to top off our gasoline cans, making sure we had enough fuel for the generator. And we needed ice. The Marina didn't open until 9 a.m., but then, when we explained our engine problem to the manager, he loaned us a can of spray used to clean electrical connections.
Through the tutelage of Stanley Fiegenbaum, the Beta distributor, I knew that there was a main electrical harness joining the engine's control pannel in the cockpit to the engine below. That harness, which carried about a dozen wires, was interrupted in two places by large plastic connectors -- each with male and female plugs and sockets for the dozen wires. I knew that the upper connector, in the back of the control panel, appeared clean but that the lower one, close to the bilge, had corrosion in at least half of its ports. I'd tried in Newport to use a fingernail file to clean the female sockets. But I wanted to try the spray, just in case. I dinghied back to the marina to return the spray, and then we headed out.
Earlier, while we were waiting for the marina to open, we'd stopped by the town dockmaster's office to pay for our mooring. There we asked for local knowledge to pass through Pollock Rip Channel.
"You don't want to do that," the dockmaster said, explaining that there was no need. Local fishermen avoided the channel, with its choppy rip currents, and simply hugged the edge of Monomoy Point. Just keep an eye our your depth sounder, he said, and you'll be fine.
Later, I was looking at the chart plotter, which showed a channel of deep water very close to the western shore of the point, and a depth of 27 feet when I happened to glance at the depth sounder. It read 2.7 feet. I steered abruptly to starboard, found deeper water out where there were small rips indicating current over shoals, and we made it around the point into the ocean at about noon.
The rest of the afternoon was unventful. The Beta ran smoothly, occasionally charging the batteries but not always.
We saved the leftover bluefish and had a simple dinner that night -- tuna sahdwiches as I recall -- and then began standing watch separately.
It was one of those clear nights when the stars are visible down to the horizon. Consequently, we kept mistaking low stars for the lights of approaching ships, too far a way to be picked up on the radar. Only when the stars rose from th horizon were we able to identify them and discount the possiblity of collision. But the stars and the moon, which at midnight rose as a huge orange scythe blade,kept us on our toes.
At the end of the 2 to 4 a.m. watch, I remained in the cockpit, dozing on one of the flattened cockpit seats while John stood watch. It was around 5 a.m. when he said: "What's that smell."
He and I both knew what it was: The odor of a heated electrical device.
I sprung from my pad and climbed down the companionway ladder, seizing the fire extinguisher mounted there before I opened the engine compartment and saw it.
Sparks and blue flames coming out the top of the alternator. I reached up to the cockpit and shut off the engine, then watched as the sparks and flames sputtered and died.

On the mooring in Newport, we found a 3/4 inch stainless steel nut on the deck. We checked everything at deck level and found no missing nuts. Then I climbed the mast and checked all fittings. To this day, the stray nut case is unsolved.

Still there was no wind, so on Saturday Morrison and I steamed out of Newport early and headed east. We expected to anchor for the night in Vineyard Haven, a funnel of a port open to the north but protected from southerly winds that had been forecast. As we crossed the mouth of Buzzards Bay in calm seas, we trolled a silver lure. John was below when the reel began zinging, paying out line. I grabbed the rod from its perch on the stern pulpit -- the fish had nearly yanked the whole thing overboard -- and began reeling in.


It wasn't a record bluefish -- 31 inches -- but it was good, with lots of flesh. After thanking it for its meat, I slaughtered it on the starboard deck and took the carcass below for fileting while John washed the blood from the teak.
By noon, we were near the entrance to Woods Hole and not five miles away from the mouth of Vineyard Haven Harbor and I decided to check the charts once more. To my astonishment, the chart indicated that we were within four or five hours of Chatham, MA, at the very elbow of the bent arm that is Cape Cod, and very close to Pollock Rip Channel. We decided to spend the night in Chatham and then go for it.
At the same time, the sky to the west was changing, first becoming hazy and then folding into the most strange cloud formations -- smooth slabs of opaque gray against rolls of lighter gray and more slabs that appeared like ribs in a skinned animal's chest.
Then the lightning began, the thunder crashed and the rain blew in sheets that stung your eyes when you tried to look into it around the edge of the dodger. One thunder clap seemed to come from directly beside us. Had we decided to enter Vineyard Haven Harbor, we'd have been attempting to anchor in this blow, so we happily steamed ahead, the sky clearing and bringing back a brilliant sun about forty-five minutes later.
The entrance to Chatham Harbor seemed daunting on the chart -- a tight channel between sandbars -- but the actual passage was so simple that a large ketch handled by a man and woman entered before us under sail. We followed them well into the harbor, where we'd called for a mooring, and watched as they sailed beyond to their mooring.
More consultations with Beta Marine caused me to search the wiring thoroughly, trying to resolve the electrical problems. But I made no more progress, so as we settled down for the night after our bluefish dinner, we had the same plan.


In the morning, we'd sail around Monomoy Point and enter the Atlantic Ocean, where we would head due north for Maine, about 30 hours away. We had the Honda generator as our backup, so we knew we'd have enough electricity to run our navigational lights, our radio and, in short bursts, our radar.

Robin's engine ran through the night, charging the batteries although at a somewhat lower level than I was accustomed to seeing. By Wednesday morning, we were veering offshore from Long Beach Island, NJ, aiming generally toward Vineyard Sound. Although I had planned this to be a sailing-only cruise, we had no wind and I decided to make up for the day lost in Cape May.
The forecast had been for winds of 15 knots gusting to 20, but at first there was nothing. Then, around mid morning, a breeze came up from the southeast and soon we were able to shut down the engine, making a good six knots under sail alone. I had visions of a silent passage all the way to Maine.
In six hours, the wind was gone, followed by haze tending toward fog and limited visibility. I turned the engine back on, then checked the volt meter for both batteries.
Nothing.
The alternator was not charging, and we were 24 hours from the nearest port. I decided to head for Newport, RI, the home of many boat mechanics, to learn what the mechanic in Cape May had missed.
The fog never let up, and by the time we were passing Block Island the next morning, we had about 200 feet of visibility. We ran the radar from time to time, using the Honda 2000 watt generator to recharge the batteries. Still, we missed the large object lurking in the mist just off our port bow. Suddenly, we were facing a large (maybe 90 foot) motor yacht as it crossed our bow within that 200 foot limit. The yacht disappeared to our east -- probably entering Great Salt Pond on Block Island, and then we turned around the green buoy north of the island and aimed for Newport.
It was about then that we heard the fog horn of a ship and then on Channel 16, the call of the ship's captain. He was steering a 600-foot tanker east on Block Island Sound, generally in our direction, and was gaining on us.
I called the skipper and gave him our location. He said he had slowed and that we would clear his bow.
We never did see the tanker, although we heard his repeated blasts on the horn. But now the wind came up and we sailed into Newport Harbor on a steep following sea, blinded by the fog, unable to see even an outline of the shore. With the sails down as we approached the inner harbor, we motored and navigated by use of the chart plotter. There were large sailboats moored everywhere, and I became disoriented for a few minutes, until I noticed the profile of the Ida Lewis Yacht Club and used it to find the channel.
Once we had taken a mooring, I called Beta Marine and got a number for their local dealer, who said they would be able to visit Robin the following week.
That would not do, so with the help of the folks at Beta in North Carolina, I began examining the engine myself and came up with a plan.
Using the Honda generator, we would proceed toward Maine, passing between Cape Cod and Matha's Vineyard and then taking the Pollock Rip Channel to reach the Atlantic offshore from the Cape. I'd wanted to make this passage for a long time, and I wasn't going to be deterred by engine problems.

John and I awoke the next morning -- Tuesday, July 20 -- aboard Robin in Cape May Harbor, anchored off the Coast Guard Station. We started the ending and, to our surprise, the alternator was charging the batteries.
Fortunately, we looked again and found no charge. So I called across the Harbor to Utsch's Marina and asked whether they had a mechanic. They did, so I reserved a slip -- at $2 per foot (Robin is 40 feet overall) -- and we hauled the anchor aboard and motored across the harbor.
Utsch's mechanic borrowed my multimeter and determined that the job was beyond his ability. He suggested that we call Engines Inc. in Pleasantville, NJ, about 30 miles to the north.
I'd already called Beta Marine, the manufacturer of our engine, and determined that they had no distributors in New Jersey. But the Utsch's mechanic assured us that Engines Inc. was a reputable firm.
Engines Inc. dispatched a young mechanic, a polite and handsom young man who had his own multimeter. He looked at the engine and then laid on his hands. What he found was that our two batteries had wingnuts fastening the cables to their posts. Not a good idea, he said.
"You can't tighten wingnuts like you can a hex nut," he explained. And a loose wingnut could interrupt the charging of the batteries, damaging the alternator. He went to his truck and brought back four hex nuts, which he tightened on the two batteries. Then we started the engine and he checked the alternator's output. It was fine. Problem solved.
In the end, those four hex nuts cost more than $100 each, an expensive lesson if, in fact, I had learned that particular lesson. But there was an even more serious lesson to be learned.
The final bill from Engines Inc. is now lying on my desk. The young mechanic had spent less than an hour at Robin. The hourly rate was $120, he told me. I had to pay him to drive to Cape May from Pleasantville. The total bill was $462.24.
As soon as the mechanic was off the boat, John and I prepared once again to go offshore. We made good use of our time, getting showers at Utsch's facilities, and about five o'clock, we were ready to cast off the dock lines.
Joy's family was still in Wildwood, so once we made it outside the inlet, I called her and told her we were about to motor down the beach -- there was no wind this time.
We were the only sailboat off Wildwood when we passed, and the entire Butler family was able to see our limp sail as we kept parallel to the coast about a mile offshore.
And then we were on our own, steaming into the night on a northasterly course, aiming for Vinyard Sound south of Cape Cod and then an outbound passage to Maine off the coast of that cape.

There has been no opportunity, since July 18 when John Morrison and I departed Cambridge, MD, aboard Robin, to check in. A lot has transpired since then, however.
At the moment, I'm sitting in a motel room in Manchester, NH, awaiting Monica's flight to arrive just up the road. John left here for home on an earlier flight. I shook hands with him and thanked him for sharing the experiences of the last 13 days. He said I will have lots to write about. I know he will have many stories to tell, some of which perhaps will not enhance my reputation as a sailor.
The primary feature of this voyage of about 550 miles to Rockland, ME, was engine trouble. It began when we departed Cape May, NJ, on the evening of our second day.
I had a plan to sail all the way once we had left the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays behind, and after we had motored out of the Cape May inlet through a boistrous chop and steered north, we began sailing with the Genoa alone, doing a solid six knots over the bottom with the wind on our starboard quarter.
In no time, we were passing along the buildings of Wildwood Crest, a couple of miles north of Cape May, and we turned the engine off, settling in for a long, dark evening of quiet and the motion of strong swells over shallow water. We both had on our harnesses, tethered to the jackline, when I decided to go below for something. The autohelm was steering and John was seated on the high, starboard side of the cockpit.
I dialed daugther Joy, who was vacationing with her family in Wildwood, so that they could go down to the beach to see us past. We were traveling so fast that I was concerned we might just blow by before they could react. She said they'd try to gather the kids and get to the beach.
I'd just stepped through the companionway opening a few minutes later and had a foot on the ladder when John noticed a "Low Battery" message on the autohelm screen. This surprised me since we'd been motoring for two straight days and, the night before, had plugged in to shore power in Chesapeake City.
I checked the volt meter above the chart table. Both batteries registered less than full readings, with the No. 2 battery -- the house battery which was now running the steering -- quite low.
I reached up into the cockpit and turned on the engine, then rechecked the volt meter. What I should have seen was the needle jumping up into the green realm of the gauge.
But there was no change. We were running on our batteries alone. For some reason, the alternator was not charging the batteries. In time, if we fed off the batteries without help from the alternator, they would go dead. We'd have no juice for our instruments, our running lights or any other electrical equipment.
So we turned Robin around and, with the engine running -- a diesel engine will run as long as it has fuel without need of any electrical current -- we headed back for the Cape May Inlet.
By the time the inlet came in view, it was dark. The furious chop was still filling the entrance, but now we faced an additional problem. We could see the green light on the end of the southern jetty, but against a backdrop of a dozen or more red lights ashore, we could not find the red light marking the tip of the northern jetty.
Now I became confused, forgetting for the moment the old saying "Red on right returning". For some reason, I had the green light to starbaord, meaning we were about to go on the wrong side of the southern jetty.
With perhaps 150 feet to go, I saw the reflection of the jetty stones below the green light and turned sharply to starboard.
But our mutual confusion continued, prompting desparate questions about "Where the hell is the red light?"
Eventually we saw the light -- a dim glow behind Robin, which had already entered the inlet safely.
We anchored in the dark amidst a half dozen other boats and left it to the morning to unravel the mystery of the low batteries.
It would take eleven more days to solve that probelm, a span of time during which we would have many more adventures, some of which sailors actually anticipate with eagerness.
More to follow.

I was thinking ahead to the voyage that begins in less than twenty-four hours, and a scene of a landfall came to mind, a pleasing scene when, after a long night at sea, you see in the early light the coast and, as the sun rises, you draw near your destination, with wind filling your sails and pride swelling your chest, and I thought: This is the metaphor for all of life's achievements, not an evening landfall, but an early one, because like all achievements, the landfall at sunrise comes after long, lonely hours, often filled with struggles, despair, self-doubt, and when you finally reach your goal, rather than being the culmination of a beautiful day at sea with warmth and hope, the landfall washes away all the imperfections of the night before and you can savor the accomplishment.
An evening landfall, when you beat the sunset into port, brings a quiet end to your travel, the way desert after supper prepares you for sleep at the finish of an unremarkable day.
A morning landfall stimulates you, despite your fatigue, and spawns shouts of exultation. Yes! We've made it!