Foggy Mornings
I love sailing. I love the feel of the wind on your face, the silent moving through the water, being outdoors. In fact, there’s little that I don’t love about the whole experience.
I love the fact that I have an electric engine. It’s not completely silent. But it’s quiet enough that you can hear the music on the stereo, or keep up a conversation with the folks on the boat, or just enjoy the feeling of being on the water.
On foggy mornings, I don’t imagine sailing. I imagine heading out, with the electric motor going. The area so quiet it feels like you’re the only one around. Not being able to see the shore, but knowing there are others out there in the mist, on the water, looking out, wondering if there’s someone unseen on the water. Faintly hearing the motor, because sound seems to travel so much better in the fog.
Today was a day like that. I heard the weather report this morning: heavy fog until noon. I dropped by the marina, to put ice in the icebox so that the drinks would be cold this evening when we headed out for the race. The fog was out there, on the river, and I yearned to go out and meet it.
Sigh! I had to go to work, to afford my boat habit, and leave it behind for now.
Lighted Boat Parade
Lighted boat parades are an adventure. I keep reminding my friend of this. They will be guaranteed to have a story. The first year we did it, I had a terrible time judging the distance between me and the other boats. In fact, at one point, I got call on the VHF radio from the guy in charge asking if we were still part of the parade. The second year, I went to rent a generator for running the lights and they only had large (I thought) ones. I went to the boat, discussed it with a few folks, and we decided we could run the lights with an inverter connected to the house batteries (no, not going to run them on the engine batteries!). We tested it and it seemed to do ok. But the parade came, and we had no lights. There wasn’t enough power so we were sailing dark. We did have glow sticks, and the lights at the very front worked. In addition, I decided to head up Sarah’s Creek. I didn’t see the marker and ran right into it. Stopped the boat cold. One of my passengers somehow fell against a heater I had in the vberth and hurt his back.
Then there was this past year, our third.
I didn’t want to have the generator problem again. I had bought a generator during the summer as a backup when we headed down for Cock Island. Erik and I checked it and couldn’t start it. I had purchased the protection plan. So we went to Harbor Freight and exchanged it. Generator? Check!
This year’s issue? The cheap bottom paint I bought last year.
As I’ve discussed elsewhere, I had barnacle problems this year. On top of that, I used cheap bottom paint for the first time. That was a big mistake! What I didn’t talk about in the barnacle article was the fact that the boat was so covered with slime that I had to have it power washed, which I wasn’t planning on. Then, in September (4 months later), it was covered with slime again.
Well, I guess I should have pulled it out and power washed the bottom and cleaned the prop again, because the boat barely moved. We couldn’t be in the parade because we couldn’t reach the parade. Try as I might, I couldn’t get the boat going fast enough to catch up to the parade. <sigh!>
So we played on the water, trying to head to Yorktown Beach. But, after singing our carols and enjoying some hot buttered rum, we headed back.
We still enjoyed each other’s company. But next year’s checklist:
- Generator? Check!
- Bottom cleaned? Check!
- Prop cleaned? Check!
Oh, and there was one other issue. I ran lights up the mast, but didn’t do it too smartly. I ended up with the ‘wrong’ ends down below and couldn’t light the lights. Paul, my resident electrician, had to restring some of the lights so we could get them all going.
After all, we had a generator. We should at least have the lights! 🙂
2013 Lighted Boat Parade
Moonlight Race
Each year, I try to stretch my sailing experiences a bit beyond what I did the year before. Last year, I decided to take on the Moonlight Race.
When I first started racing my boat, I tended to come in dead last. Part of it was inexperience, part of it was trying to avoid the other boats, afraid I’d get my damaged if I was too close. But that also meant that we were getting back to the docks after dark. So we learned to sail in the dark early on.
Besides, it’s never completely dark on the river. If there’s no stars or moon, there’s always the homes that line it, the Coleman bridge, and the power plant. Each, if not iluminating the area, does it make it possible to at least get our bearings. The only real obstacle to worry about are the shallows on both sides of river and the shallow areas at the mouth of the river. So, as long as my depth meter is working and visible, it should be no problem.
First Steps
The first step was to find the route and figure it out in the daytime. The route required us to start at R-22 on the York River, round York Spit Light, then back to R-22.
I’ve sailed near that area numerous times, when heading down to Hampton. But I couldn’t remember ever seeing that structure before. So I wanted to sail by it, both to get an idea of what the time would be, and to be able to identify it when I saw it.
Wendy and I headed out one morning, in search of the structure. I had 3 different sets of coordinates for it, so we only had a general idea of where it was. We headed out of the river, having the usual difficulty doing so.
The prevalent winds are such that the boat wants to go across the river, not up or down it. This we knew. That meant that one the hardest parts of the race would be getting out of the river itself. So this was one of the things that Wendy and I had to work on.
It was taking forever, as usual, to get out of the river. So we motored a bit to get out of the river, rather than waste our whole time in the river, rather than looking for the structure.
Once we got out of the river, we had mixed weather: no wind to too much. Well, not really too much. It wasn’t dangerous. But we did move quite quickly.
When we got close to where the light should be, we started looking for it. The spot was near the intersection of two different routes in the area. And, there was a third route nearby. Between them, there were a number of different markers with the same numbers on them. This threw us off. In addition, there were a number of different structures in the area, none of which looked like the picture we’d seen. Our time was growing short, so we headed back, having not found the structure.
First Moonlight Run
Our next practice session was a nighttime one. Dew, one of the more experienced sailors I know, and his girlfriend, Kelli, joined me, along with Wendy. We headed out about 1/2 an hour before sunset.
It was cold enough to be brisk, but not uncomfortable. And the wind was great.
With Dew’s help, we made it out of the river without motoring. In fact, the only problem we had heading out was getting too close to Tule Marsh, another shallow spot on the river.
I did learn, too, that iPads are not the best of navigation tools at night. Their light is too bright and leaves you partially blinded when you look away. Add to the fact that they are difficult to see in the middle of the day, too, and I don’t think that my iPad will become a navigation tool that I’ll rely on too much on my boat until I have one with a bimini to shade me.
We made it out to the York Spit light and I understood why Wendy and I had such a hard time finding it the first time. It had been destroyed in one of our storms and never rebuilt. So it was essentially just a platform with some sticks on it, not anything like the picture above.
On the way back, we had another problem: the house lights went out. I hadn’t charged the house batteries, and we had been running both lights and music the whole way. I didn’t worry about it, since I have two ‘house’ batteries. I use one at a time, so I assumed that the other was still charged. Nope. We switched over to it and it was dead as well.
Later, when I had charged them both, I found that one discharged as the other did. I still haven’t figured out whether the circuitry is bad or one of my batteries is dead. Another chore for this winter.
So, anyway, back to the story…
As I said, we had plenty of light surrounding us. We had picked a night near the full moon. Unfortunately, I hadn’t checked on the time of moonrise: the moon wasn’t rising until early, early morning, so we were sailing without the moon to guide us. But we had the GPS, we had the landmarks I mentioned, and we had a depth gauge that worked to keep us from bottoming out.
The only slight issue we had was the tug that couldn’t see us and didn’t answer our call on the radio (unlike Robert Redford in All is Lost, I do have a spare VHF radio in cases of emergency. Luckily we did stay out of his way and didn’t get run over.
We did make it home safely, quite late. And that was something else we were checking out – how long would it actually take us to make the run.
The Race Itself
Well, the race got cancelled. We got out there and there was only us, one other racer, and the committee boat. The rules require that there be at least 3 boats racing to make it official, so the race was cancelled.
Crew that night were Dew and Kelli. And the three of us decided that we wanted to do the race anyway.
The wind was strong. The waves we 4′-5′. It made for a rough ride heading out. And it ended up hurting Kelli’s back. She spent time in recovery afterwards. Luckily, the temperature was great and the company wonderful. Luckily, too, Dew was with us. I wouldn’t have made the run without him.
The waves were with us coming back, so we surfed home. And, as I said, the temperature was great. This time, I did made sure the house battery was charged so we were able to enjoy our music out and back.
Coming into the York River, we had the moon, we had the lights from the bridge and from the power plant. And the winds were calmer in the river. It made for one of those moments you want to savor forever.
Will we do it again? Heck, yes!
[Top]The Long Road
Well, it’s that time of year again. The Cock Island Race is next Saturday. But family obligations left me with little vacation time. So, rather than taking the boat from Yorktown to Hampton on Thursday, then Hampton to Portsmouth on Friday, we took the boat up to Hampton on Sunday. This did offer the advantage that I had a weekend to check for optimal weather, rather than being locked into a single day.
Saturday and Sunday looked to be the same, weather wise: beautiful if you were on land or lounging at the beach, not exactly optimal for sailing. There was to be some breeze in the morning, but nothing in the afternoon. And the high temperature was expected to be 90. In other words, we’d have wind when it was cool in the morning and be roasting in the afternoon with no wind to cool us.
My crew for the day: Paul, Grant and Bette, were open on Sunday, so that’s the day we picked.
We were taking the boat to the Hampton Public Piers this time. They offered a special with every 3rd night free and, if you paid for their annual ‘preferred guest’ pass, it was only $.75/foot/night as opposed to $1.50 – $1.75/foot/night at the other two places: Old Point Comfort and Salt Ponds. It would be about an hour farther than Salt Ponds, and we had made Salt Ponds before with no problem. Heck! We’d made it home from Hampton Public Pier last year without a hitch. So I decided to throw caution to the wind and not bring a generator for backup power this time.
The morning was beautiful. Not much sailing, since the breezes were light. But the sails were shading us from the sun and the temperature was pleasant. Early afternoon was about the same. We did get pushed by the wind a bit. But it was mostly motorsailing we were doing to keep the speeds up to at least 2.5 knots.
We did get some following winds to push us along. But the winds were fickle, changing direction enough that Grant and I got alot of practice putting up and down the whisker pole.
We had the autopilot on most of the time. I’d pick a marker at the end of whatever straight course we needed to follow. Paul would look it up on his phone’s Navionics app and give me the coordinates and I’d plug them into the Garmin 76CX GPS. This was much easier than finding the mark on that tiny map that the device gives, and it saved us using up Paul’s phone batteries by relying on it as the primary GPS device.
Towards mid-afternoon, Bette took over at the helm and the wind kicked up. I swear she brought the wind gods to our attention finally. We had had a bit of sailing before, but the winds had been so fickle that we have to be cautious that we were not losing ground by sailing back the way from which we had come. But after Bette took over, just past Salt Ponds, the winds were in our favor. We were heeling 20 – 30 degrees and moving at quite a clip – and in the right direction.
It was beautiful! I was finally able to turn off the engine. We were riding smooth. And the wind was keeping us from getting hot in the afternoon.
[Photo by Paul Gregory]
We spent about an hour doing this, making our way towards the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, trying to figure out who the ships were that we were seeing and just enjoying the chance to finally sail.
I took over the helm as we approached the tunnel. I turned back on the engine and kept us at about 2 – 2.5 knots, mindful of the fact that the display showed us with about 2-1/2 hours of battery life left at that point.
When we got to Bluewater Marine, the first marina in the downtown Hampton area, I asked Paul to take over the helm. As soon as I did, you could hear the engine ramp down. Paul pushed the throttle up the entire way and it didn’t change things. We had already put the sails down, and we had a following breeze, so I tried to pull the jib out. It got stuck about halfway, something it had done the last couple of times we had brought it out. If I went to the roller, pulled it back to roll the sail back on, then let it go, it would work. I’ll need to look at it next week when I have a few experts around.
I had tried several times to hail the dockmaster and received no answer. I called and left a message on her cell. Someone on the radio said she’d gone home for the day, that I should just find a slip and talk to her in the morning.
The engine gave up about 15 minutes after Paul went behind the wheel. But we had the current with us and the jib. So we sailed into the Hampton Public Piers.
The first slip we found was right beside the one marked for the water taxi and dinghy tie-up. I wasn’t sure that we could use it, so we moved down the dock. We finally found #12 open and turned in. We were only going about 1 kt at that point, so we could pull ourselves along the side of our neighbor into the slip. I jumped off the bow onto the dock and stopped the boat. We did bump lightly into the pier but sustained no damage. We tied up, ensuring we had a good spring line to avoid bumping into the pier.
I was very grateful for the crew I had. They knew what they were doing and there was no word of complaint, even after the heat hit us bad once the engine gave out. They worked together efficiently as a team to get the boat safely into the docks. I’m very happy they were with me.
I was wondering, as we were drifting in, whether we could have used the house batteries, which are on a separate circuit and still had plenty of juice as a backup to get us into the slip. Since the batteries are quite different, although both are 12V, I don’t know if any damage would be caused. I’m going to put a note out to the electric boat mailing list and an email to Electric Yacht to get some insight. I’ll post what I find here.
[Top]Christmas Parade
There are Lighted Boat Parades throughout the Hampton Roads region. Each happens the first Saturday of December (weather permitting). Normally I travel on Dave’s boat in the Hampton parade. But this year, Dave and Petra are enjoying sunny Key West for the season. So, when Bette broached the subject of my doing the parade with my boat, I thought, “Why not?”
I’m on hold right now, waiting on word of my new contract starting. So it’s been difficult to plan much of anything. It’s like being on call – you have time to do all sorts of projects in the area. But it’s difficult to plan anything that will require leaving town, or may require long term planning of any sorts.
I missed the deadline for getting my name/boat in the program. That was the first part of November. See: ‘on call’ above. :-/ So this turned into one very long day!
In the morning, I moved the boat from Wormley Creek up to the Yorktown Riverwalk piers. It’s a short ride. But that morning, there were 15+ knot winds (there were whitecaps) and 2 to 2-1/2 foot waves. It wasn’t dangerous. But I’ve done enough of these rides and I really don’t enjoy them. I really wish the weather in the morning had been better.
I’d tried hailing the dockmaster when I was about halfway there, about 9:30. There was no answer, so I left a message on his answering machine. I wish I’d rechecked the website. In the winter, the dockmaster is only there from 10 – 4, Thursday through Monday.
I arrived about 5 after 10. I didn’t hail the dockmaster again. Since I was by myself, and the water was rough, and the tide and current make it a pain in the ass to get into those piers, I figured I’d do my best to park myself, then look for him once I got in. But he saw me pulling in and came to give me a hand. Of course, I didn’t dock it where he originally wanted me to. The situation was such that I was happy to just get it tied up.
Lesson one for the day: check the times the dock is opening, especially if you’re alone.
Lesson two: try to get some help when pulling into Yorktown Piers, whenever it is!
I got a ride back to my car from Bette, who was there for the craft fair going on in town that day. She headed back to the craft fair; I headed out to get a generator, then home to prepare for that night.
I was lucky; there were generators available. And at a good price, too! It only cost me $35 for Saturday afternoon through Monday morning from ABZ Rentals. That’s cheap enough, I may keep it in mind when taking some longer cruises next year.
I headed home, made soup and hot buttered rum mix, put both into crockpots and headed back over to the boat. The crew were going to meet me about 2 p.m. to help decorate. I arrived, unloaded everything except the generator and hauled it over to the boat. Wendy helped with the last of it. We got a dock cart from the Dockmaster and brought the generator over. I wanted to wait until someone else arrived before trying to get it aboard. I thought we’d have to use a halyard to bring it aboard. But Paul was able to lift it on the deck without a problem.
The rest of the crew arrived and we finished the decorations. There were a few pictures taken during the daylight of the boat. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find a picture of the boat lit up or in the parade.
- Lighted Boat Parade 2011
Courtesy of Paul Gregory
The wind was expected to die down about 2 in the afternoon. And it did. In fact, although it was cold – about 40 degrees – it didn’t feel too bad since we had no wind to deal with. Not only that, the river was smooth, which made for a nice ride.
I fed the crew soup before we headed out, so I wouldn’t have to worry about it spilling on the trip. The crew shared in the hot buttered rum on the trip. I waited until we returned to have any myself.
We waited for the announcement that the boats were gathering for the parade, and kept an eye on the Wormley Creek channel, from which many of them would emerge. We saw a few boats gathering, but not that many, so I finally asked Jodi to hail them and find out what was going on. Well, the boats had started getting into place. Doug asked us to head over and let him know when we’d arrived. We did, and he said to just find ourselves a place in line, which we also did. I felt sorta bad ‘cutting in line’, but that seemed to be the way it was done.
So we all took off and the parade began. It went down Sarah’s Creek, which we skipped, because I didn’t want to get stuck in the shallows, in front of the crowd at Gloucester Point, under the bridge – again skipped it because all the other sailboats were – then in front of the Yorktown piers. Then we circled in front of Gloucester Point and Yorktown again before pulling up in front of Yorktown, making noise and showing off.
The decorations blocked my view of what was directly in front of me. That wasn’t too bad most of the time. But, at one point, I got quite a bit behind the boat in front of me – I swear he sped up, but I don’t know for sure. We were hailed on the radio – they asked if we were still in the parade. So I sped up to catch up.
Lesson three: keep the line of sight clear with the decorations, and keep a good distance behind the boat in front of you.
We pulled back into the Yorktown piers when it was over. One of the volunteers helped us to tie up. Good thing, too! In the morning, after I’d left, a huge yacht had pulled in behind me. Glad I wasn’t there when he did – I’m sure I’d have had a heart attack. One of the passengers said I probably would have, since their bow when over my cockpit!
So, with the help of the young man on shore, we were able to park again where we’d been. Everyone took a break and warmed up by the bonfire on shore. Then we all sat in the cabin, ate the snacks that Bette and Jodi brought along, and finished up the hot buttered rum.
The next day, Erik and I came just before noon and picked up the boat. He drove while I started taking things down. He helped me once we got parked in the slip and we finished in no time.
I’d like to do this again next year. But I think we’ll stay at Wormley Creek. There wasn’t enough activity going on in Yorktown to really warrant being there. Besides, Pam and Doug had food and drinks for those who returned!
[Top]