Watching the Wind Come In
I spent last Tuesday doing something I’ve never been able to do: spend *all* day sailing, in no hurry to get anyway. Usually, if I’m out for some pleasure cruising, there’s a time limit because the person I’m with has to be somewhere by a certain time. If I’m all day on the boat, it’s because I need to get it from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’.
But Tuesday was different. I’m between contracts, so my time is (mostly) my own. The weather reports showed last Tuesday as what may be our last really nice (read: temps in the upper 70’s) day of the year. Wednesday, it was to rain all day long. Days after that would show highs in the 60’s. Not bad, I know. But not the warm sun on your face almost perfect temp sailing weather.
I did have a goal in mind. I was heading out to New Point Comfort lighthouse again, at the mouth of Mobjack Bay, on the far side of Gloucester. It’s a pleasant little ride and not extremely far away.
The trip was beautiful. I had to motor most of the way out of the York River. But, as usual, when I reached the mouth of the York, the winds picked up and we were sailing. The direction was even good to sail most of the way over to the lighthouse.
The way back, as usual, was a bit challenging. It’s shallow between Mobjack and York River. There’s a cut through that you can take, but it’s narrow and I often don’t see the markers. I timed the trip so I could do this during high tide, and this helped. But I did keep a close eye to my depth finder and Navionics disply. I did get nervous as the depth got down to 13 feet and lower. I think it stopped at 9 before it started going up again.
Once I reached the York again, I saw an interesting site. I could see the wind patterns on the water.
Now, I know the theory of this, and I know what you’re supposed to look for. The water appears darker where the wind is stronger. Where whitecaps appear, the wind is stronger still. But I had never seen it so clearly as I did that day. There were ripples where I was, and there had been most of the day, given the perfect wind I’d been riding in. But ahead of me, the water appeared darker, and it looked even darker still further on.
So I was ready, and I adjusted for it. I let out the sails before I reached the darker water. I gauged the wind and adjusted accordingly. It worked well, I felt in control of my boat. Before I reached the whitecaps, I turned into the wind, pulling in the main so it didn’t bang back and forth, turned on the autopilot, and pulled the jib in partway. I let the main back out, turned off the wind, and headed into the whitecapped water.
I spent my time getting back the channel that led to the marina. It felt good to be out there practicing my skills.
And it just felt good being sailing and not worry about the time.
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It’s that time of year again. Cock Island Race in Portsmouth, then family reunion a week later. This past weekend, I brought the boat back up to Yorktown. I had offers of help that I turned down. I had a bracket to install on the electric engine, and I had a new bilge pump to put in. So, rather than asking anyone else to get up at the crack of dawn so we could get cars transported, I decided to go it alone.
Didn’t end up leaving until noon however. Bilge pump took longer than I expected, then I didn’t have the drill bit to put a hole in the rail for the bracket, so ended up making a trip to the hardware store. Got the wrong bit and still didn’t get the bracket installed. But I said to hell with it and headed out anyway.
I ended up motoring most of the way down the Elizabeth, since the wind wasn’t going to let me get across as quickly as I wanted. As I approached the bay, the direction of the wind was such that I thought I might actually get to cross the tunnel by sail. Then the speedboats came.
Guess I should have paid attention to the notice that there was an announcement on Channel 16 for anyone in the Elizabeth River or near Craney Island. There was a speedboat race that afternoon, and I was on the wrong side of the Elizabeth when the boats started coming through. Fast ones. The kind you see the drug runners using in the movies. Every time I thought it was safe to cross in front of them, another wave came by. I finally headed up the James while I waited for them to finish. Nice sailing, but I lost a couple of hours of time doing so.
Heading towards the Hampton Roads tunnel, I lost speed. Not wanting to push the electric, I started the outboard. About then, I saw Excelsior and slowed down, hoping to say ‘hello’ as they passed. They didn’t stop, so I tried starting the engine again, figuring by this time I needed to hurry to get to Salt Ponds before they closed. The outboard wouldn’t start. The electric wouldn’t give me more than about ½ a knot, and I was pushing it. The wind was coming from the wrong direction to sail across, so I turned around, and called Hampton Public Piers for a slot for the night. Turning around also gave me 3-1/2 knots, so there must have been some current there at the time.
Hampton Public Piers meant losing another couple of hours getting home. So the next day, I filled up the gas can, rather than mess with the bracket on the electric engine, and figured to motor unless the winds were really good. They weren’t, and I motored most of the way. On the good side, I saw plenty of dolphins, the breeze was strong enough to keep me from getting too hot on the trip, and the nasty spot near the mouth off of the Poquoson Flats and the mouth of the York, where the waves and wind usually kick up, was perfect sailing.
I’m very tanned now. And the boat is back where it belongs.
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The old jib is back. Repair looks good! Thank you Dan Winters!
Yesterday was the second race of the Frostbite series. I wasn’t expecting any crew to show up; it’s been difficult to get folks to commit to a weekend, since we really hadn’t planned on racing this series in the first place. But I headed over to the boat, figured I could get the jib up at least. If anyone showed up, I’d go ahead and race. Otherwise, I’d just head home to do the homework I was avoiding.
No one was there by 12:30, the time I needed to head out of the slip. But you know how it is. The wind, the waves, the boat all tugged me out. So I headed out of the channel, set the sails, and aimed towards the starting buoy.
The wind was lousy. The breeze barely moved the sails. And then there was the barge that’s been on the river for a couple of weeks messing with the breezes, too. But I headed on down, knowing the winds would be better at the mouth of the river, near the bay.
After I passed the barge, the winds did pick up. I got a good 4 knots going. I still had about 20 minutes to reach the starting line, so I figured I was good.
I wasn’t. I was well away from the barge and the winds were still shifting. Mind you, I was near the refinery docks. But that shouldn’t have affected it that much. Since I had a good speed, and the current tack would have taken me into the docks, I tacked away from it. Now, though, rather than making a 90 degree turn to port, I made more like a 120 degree turn, taking me away from the mark. Knowing the current was going to be pulling me in almost the opposite direction, however, I stayed on that tack as long as possible, then turned again. Same thing. Got good speed going, then the wind shifted and I wasn’t heading towards the mark any more. Rather than keep fighting it, I just turned around and figured I’d play for awhile then head in.
The wind was nice, mind you. But I really had to pay attention. I couldn’t aim towards anything an be assured I’d keep moving in that direction. At one point, near the barge, of course, the wind shifted almost 180 degrees as I tried to set the sails.
I kinda wish I’d gone ahead and raced, though. The winds picked up, as they had the week before, about an hour into the race. It was probably some awesome sailing out there on the bay. <sigh!>
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Soloing
Sunday, I had work to do. And what’s the best thing to do when you have deadlines to meet? Well, in the words of Bluto:
TOGA! TOGA!
Well, next best thing is to go sailing. So I did on Sunday.
Two weeks ago, we had some strong winds that ripped the jib. It’s in for repairs and, hopefully, will be done this week. In the meantime, Steve N. loaned me one of his. It’s a bit small for the vessel – it doesn’t reach the spreaders and it’s 7′ shorter on the luff that it should be. But I’m grateful to him, since I’m not dead in the water.
So I could have called someone to join me. But I really just wanted to be out there by myself.
I drove up to the marina, got a cart, loaded in Steve’s jib, grabbed some ice and headed down to the boat. I had finally remembered to pick up some extra oil – the engine was about a quart low. So I added that and checked the coolant level. Coolant looked fine.
I’d been meaning to take some time to cut the extra lines off the piling, so I grabbed my leatherman’s tool and did so. Not as many creatures growing on them as I suspected. But there were about 5 extra lines there, now gone.
I pulled off the spring line and started the engine. I took off the aft lines, put on the wheel lock, put the boat in forward and rushed forward to remove the forward lines.
It was about 2 hours before low tide when I headed out of the channel. I got stuck once, turned around, got unstuck and continued out. At 10′ depth, I put up the jib.
Roller furler jibs are a dream when your single-handing it, if they’re already installed. But trying to get that thing up single handing it was a pain. I finally got a balance between pulling on the halyard and getting it strung to get the thing up. I then tried to backwind it to keep the boat stable. Duh! That works when the main is pushed one way and the jib the other. Know what happens with one sail? Yup! The boat starts going in circles. Well, that was no problem. I was deep enough, and not drifting to shore. There were no nearby boats. So I turned more into the wind, set the wheel lock and started hoisting the main.
Of course, the boat starts turning off the wind as I hoist the main. So I turn on the auto pilot. But the auto pilot doesn’t do alot of good if you’re not moving forward. And I didn’t want to do that. So I just let the boat continue it’s lazy turn and I continued to hoist the main. I couldn’t quite get it to the top. But that was ok; I could get it the rest of the way later when I was under way and could turn on the auto pilot and face it into the wind.
The weather was perfect! The wind was about 10 knots and warm. And I just lazily moved across the river.
I figured I might just try to make it over to the R22 (further) channel buoy. I aimed for it, but had the same problem I have on Wednesday nights: the boat drifts towards starboard as much as it moves forward. I still need to get someone on board to help me figure out how to avoid doing that.
So, I just traveled around the cargo ship that was docked just outside the channel, taking my time, just me and Auto.
I really didn’t’ want to head back. But I didn’t want to get stuck coming in on low tide either.
Too late. I did. But not while in the channel, but after I reached the mouth of the creek. Who’d have thought? It’s usually safe by the time I get that far.
This time, though, I had a Good Samaritan in a small power boat help me out. She had one of her passengers grab a line from me. We tied it stern to bow and she pulled me out of the mud. I thanked her and proceeded to my slip.
Docking went perfectly! With no wind to fight at the docks, I backed the boat beautifully into my slip.
I love sharing my boating time with friends. But there’s something to be said, too, for just being on your own.
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