Nearly a year after my trip with the British Seagull 40 Plus I set out again with a four stroke 2hp Honda a friend gave me. It was another beautiful day… a slight chill in the air and not a cloud in the sky. I launched at the local boat ramp around 9am and started up the river. The goal was to find the right fork and explore further into the swamp since I didn’t have any specific time to be back home.
I didn’t take any pictures on the way up since it really felt like a continuation of the trip from last year. I saw the same guy fishing on his dock under the transmission lines, got stuck in the same place, and even ran out of gas 130 yards apart!
Here’s where I made a left and was able to continue two miles further up into the Dragon Swamp. Unfortunately it was right at low tide so the channel was narrow and downed trees were an issue.
Last year’s trip in yellow vs this year in green.
It’s hard to convey how beautiful it is back here. Everything was this vivid full green color with hints of fall colors in places. The river water was dark from leeching tannins of the 140 square mile swamp, yet clear enough that more than once I freaked out thinking I was about to hit a submerged tree yet it passed well under my centerboard. Sometimes it was hard to spot the next bend from the reflection of all the trees.
It got narrower…
and narrower…
And in a few places blocked entirely by guys fishing. One turn I took way too close to the inside trying to get around a pair of boats and I ran aground. They looked at me like I was nuts, but raising the centerboard and poling off with an oar had me free again in a few seconds.
Eventually I ran up on a fallen tree and could go no further. I bet at high tide I’d be able to get over it, so maybe next year. It looks like there’s 40-50 more miles of river that kayaks and canoes can navigate.
Look at all those cypress knees just waiting to rip your hull open!
On the way back down I swung over to check out the crane on the sunken barge. It’s a Northwest lattice boom crawler that I assume was used for dredging. Funny enough the radiator fan was still spinning in the breeze.
I ended up going 31 miles in 6:10 at an average of 5 miles an hour. I kept the throttle at the start position, or about half throttle. For fuel economy, I averaged 8.16 miles per 1 liter tank which works out to 30.89 miles per gallon or 0.16 gallons per hour. Nearly twice as efficient as the two stroke British Seagull.
I saw bald eagles, osprey, herons, kingfishers, pileated woodpeckers, a red tailed hawk, squirrels, a long nosed gar, and various other large fish I don’t know the names of. Not a bad day for $4.10 in gas!
Launching just across the bridge at Gwynn’s Island with a full load of beach stuff and the stowed sailing rig.
We motored 2.5 miles out to the sandy southern tip of the island in about 45 minutes. I didn’t keep track of the watts consumed, but it was slow going against the wind, tide, and chop. A couple of times we’d hit a wake and almost come to a stop.
About 50 feet from shore the amps suddenly shot up and progress ground to a halt. Fortunately it’s quite shallow and I could jump out to pull us to shore. I was surprised by how loose the grass was to still foul things up. I later swapped to the stock propeller but didn’t get a chance to test its weed shedding ability.
After getting our umbrella set up I started getting the rig together. We were the second boat out to the point and the other couple seemed pretty interested in what I was doing. I’ve only ever seen one or two sail boats out here amongst the horde of power boaters.
I haven’t sailed since last summer’s trip to Kure Beach and it took a bit of time to get the lines on the snotter running right. It’s so easy to get halyards outside of the jib sheets or the reef lines inside the sail’s robands. I put in a preemptive reef since it was blowing a good 10-15 with some gusts.
Eventually I got everything set and took off. Once I got some sea room I hoisted the jib which took a few tries to get tensioned enough. If I wasn’t building a Long Steps I think I’d build a homemade roller furler for it.
I didn’t take any pictures from the boat since I just bought a new phone and didn’t have a case for it. After getting the jib set up I headed downwind along the shore and then tacked my way back upwind to the beach for a 7.4 mile trip in 1.5 hours. It was slow going since everything was against me… the wind, the tide, a short and steep chop, and a reefed sail. The best I could do was a 150º tacking angle. Despite sailing at 5-6 mph on each tack, I only made 1.3 mph toward my destination. I’ve heard it’s often faster to row upwind than it is to sail and I think this might be some good evidence!
After lunch and Henry’s nap a ton of boats showed up. I thought the wind might keep them away, but a friend said more than likely it just takes a while for them to sober up from Friday night and get going.
Henry had a great time sitting in the sternsheets wiggling the tiller as the boat hunted back and forth in the wind.
Finally it was time to pack up and head home. I decided we could sail back to the ramp since it was dead downwind. I dispensed with the jib so there’d be fewer lines in the way and less things to keep track of.
I’ve decided to sell the 1971 British Seagull 40 Plus a friend gave me, so I took it out for one last trip. Partially to make some memories since I really haven’t used it all that much, but also to get a video of it running for the listing. I’ve heard the upper end of the Piankatank river is really pretty, so I headed up there on a 22 mile trip to check it out. The reports are true and I’m definitely planning to head back up there at some point!
Friday afternoon I launched at a nearby ramp with my 1.5 year old son to motor back around to our house. It took 9 or 10 pulls to get the motor going, probably because the gas has been sitting around since the beginning of spring. But eventually it roared to life and we puttered off at 5 mph.
Henry had a great time standing there digging Cheerios out of his bowl and watching the scenery go by. I ran a line through the jib cleat to his life jacket so I could reel him in if he tried to climb over the side and stick his hand in the water. That was a favorite move from our summer trips out to the sandbar.
The next morning I set off under perfectly calm conditions. A few times the lower unit collected a wad of leaves or marsh grass and I had to stop to clear it off. I tried to keep an eye on the telltale since the leaves tended to block the water intake, but it was pretty easy to notice when the vibration really picked up. The four blade propeller doesn’t have much going for it to shed weeds.
Heading up the Piankatank. I didn’t know how much gas to bring, so I brought a 5 gallon tank mixed 50:1 as backup. Turns out the 1 gallon and full motor tank was plenty. Originally the Seagull ran on a 10:1 mix but mine is new enough to have better bearings so I changed the carb needle to run 25:1.
About halfway up the river I noticed a sunken barge with a crane on it so I swung over to check it out. It always feels a little eerie when I come across something sticking out of the water that shouldn’t be there.
I motored along enjoying the scenery and farther up the river the woods gave way to a winding marsh of phragmites. From what I understand these are pretty invasive and outcompete the natural marsh grasses.
Along the bank in places were patches of cypress trees with dozens of knees sticking up out of the water. My father was a pretty serious hobby wood carver and I have a few gnome faces he made out of them.
In the last couple miles it really started getting beautiful. I saw some bald eagles flying around and perhaps that was their nest.
Perfectly blue skies and still water as I hunted for the next stretch of river.
Farther up the river shrank down to about 50′ wide.
This was about as far as I dared to go and there was just barely enough room to pole my 15′ boat around with an oar. I later found I missed a turn and could have gone at least another mile on a different branch up into the Dragon Swamp. Next time!
Idling back down the river watching the ripples make wild reflections. I usually lock the motor straight ahead and steer with the tiller but it has an annoying tendency to slowly vibrate itself over no matter how tight the shaft clamp is.
What a beautiful day and not a cloud in the sky.
Eventually I made it back to the Deep Point boat ramp where my wife and son were waiting. Up until the early 1900’s steamboats carrying passengers and cargo made it this far up the river as they connected lots of little towns all over the Chesapeake Bay.
After cleaning up the motor I put it on Marketplace for $250. I figured the price was on the optimistic side so I decided to model some different propeller shapes to 3d print and experiment with while I waited. But lo and behold I had a buyer within a few days who wanted to pay me $260! At the drop off he said he restores old outboards and displays them at outboard motor meetups. I’ve never heard of such a hobby, but more power to him! It’s probably the best use for it.
After looking at the GPS data I found my average cruising speed was 5 mph and I went right at 10 miles on a tank of gas. Apparently the tank holds 0.6 gallons so that works out to about a cup of fuel per mile, or 16.7 mpg. Time wise, it ended up being about 0.3 gph.
On Labor Day we took Moga back out to the sandbar at Gwynn’s Island. There were quite a few boats, although not as many as last time.
I think Henry enjoys sitting in the boat wiggling the tiller back and forth more than he likes the beach. Another favorite pastime is climbing forward and getting the excess anchor and dock line all tangled together around the belaying pins on the mast partner.
He did have a great time playing in the water though. He’s pretty fearless which makes it difficult to do anything but keep an eye on him. The first time we introduced him to water at a lake he just started walking out and would have kept on going if we didn’t stop him once the water was up to his torso.
Around midday I noticed a Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk doing laps in the Bay off the side of Gwynn’s Island. After a while it started doing long back and forth runs up past Stingray Point. I assumed they were looking for someone, or possibly doing a training exercise.
Here’s the track from a flight tracker. The sandbar we’re at is between the two most southerly runs.
Eventually I learned someone found a floating life jacket and the helicopter came all the way up from Elizabeth City, North Carolina. It’s both insane and comforting to know the Coast Guard will spend thousands of dollars an hour flying around just to investigate a life jacket that had in all likelihood been blown out of a boat.
Heading back after a long day. Every crab pot buoy we passed Henry would point and was sure it was a “baaaallll!”
Going out the trolling motor consumed 151 wh over 2.62 miles for an average of 57.6 wh per mile at an average speed of 3.5 mph. On the return trip it consumed 177 wh for an average of 67.6 wh per mile at an average speed of 3.7 mph.
Friday night on a bit of a whim my wife and I decided to take the boat around to the sandy beach below Gwynn’s Island for the day. We got launched around 11:30 am and Henry had an absolute blast in the boat. The last time we took him out all he did was scream and try to climb overboard! Once we got there the beach was packed with probably a good 30 boats at times and it was fun to compare and contrast the $50,000 and 310hp boat that pulled up and anchored beside me. Henry had a great time splashing around in the edge of the water, we caught some moon jellies, saw a fiddler crab, and made a friend with Palmer who wanted to play with his beach toys. My trolling motor setup consumed 272 Wh over the 5.3 mile trip for an average of 51.3 Wh per mile which matches nicely with my estimate of 50 Wh per mile from the motor testing.
Headed out to the sandbar. We had coolers, beach chairs, two tents, toys, and who knows what else! Everything with a kid takes twice as long and twice as much stuff as you’d think.
Tucked up by the beach. Recently I melted 6.5 pounds of lead into the stock on my three piece fisherman anchor and capped the ends. It really sets firmly and the lead replaces the need for chain which at this scale wouldn’t weigh enough to do much of anything but chew up the finish on the boat.
I tied a stern line to the beach umbrella to pull the boat close to shore and Henry had a great time swinging the rudder back and forth.
Helping me steer on the way home. I told him all about how starboard and port came to be and how daymarks are red triangles or green squares. Not sure much of it stuck though.
After an amazingly fast beat to windward of 70 mph at times, Moga and I found ourselves in Kure Beach just below Wilmington, North Carolina for a week at the beach with my folks. Every day we’d drive 2 or 3 miles down the shore and find a nice spot to set up. I pulled out one poor soul in a two wheel drive SUV and later got a bit stuck myself, although we easily drove out after dropping the tires down to 15 psi. It’s a nice place, but it’s also an expensive tourist trap. Parking is ridiculous ($8 per hour, 2 hour minimum, 10% “service” fee), food is expensive, and the off road permit is highway robbery at $30 on weekends and $20 on weekdays. I’m used to a 10 day pass up at Hatteras which is $50. The first thing I noticed when we arrived was the tides in this area are around 5′ which is way more than the foot or so in my neck of the Chesapeake Bay. I felt a bit apprehensive about a potential daysail over on the Cape Fear river. At least somehow the boat ramps turned out to be free!
Last fall I managed to snag an East German Freiberger trommel sextant for $150. I really have no need for a sextant, but I’ve always been fascinated by using the sky as a clock to figure out where you are. I figured I’d play around with it some, then sell it for what it should go for and put the money towards building Long Steps. I also had some delusions about trying to get a fix while dinghy cruising, but after doing the sight reductions I’m not sure that’s going to happen.
The first couple days of our vacation had calm winds around 5 mph and the ocean was about as flat as I’ve ever seen it. The sky was clear and the horizon sharp so I set out fixing the perpendicularity, side, and index errors of the sextant. I ran through the adjustments a few times since they can interact with each other, but by and large it all felt a little too easy and I wondered if I was actually improving anything at all. After that I took four sun sights and began researching what I’d need to do to figure out where I was.
#1 50º 2.1′ at 14:27:17 UTC
#2 52º 11.4′ at 14:32:43 UTC
#3 66º 41.3′ at 15:45:26 UTC
#4 76º 17.4′ at 16:45:24 UTC
After some false starts with Youtube videos and websites that talk to you like you already know what you’re doing, I eventually found thenauticalalmanac.com and their Complete Sun Sight Reduction Procedure pdf. It goes into excruciating detail with examples and over the next two evenings I worked my way through the four sights to eventually arrive at the numbers I needed: assumed position longitude, intercept, and Zn. I did cheat on the dead reckoned latitude by using the GPS coordinates, but let’s just assume I’ve been keeping track of my course. Note to self: don’t forget to convert local time to UTC before doing all the calculations, and despite the name the assumed position longitude isn’t whatever you want it to be.
Finally on the third evening I plotted my line of position and found my first sight was… wait for it… 57 nautical miles off of my true position. Thankfully the other three were only .25, 1.75, and 5.5 nm off. Eventually I realized my error in sight #1 was writing 50º instead of 52º. There’s no way the sun moves 2 degrees in 5 minutes. So, now all I need to do is account for three days of drifting while I was busy figuring out where I used to be!
It was actually a super fun exercise and later in the week I took four more sights and got within 2, 3, 6, and 8 nautical miles of my true position. Better yet I was able to do all four sight reductions and plot them in about an hour since I vaguely knew what I was doing. I think I’ll keep the sextant and try doing some lunar distances sometime to see if I can find the correct time. It’s really given me an appreciation of Frank Worsley on the trip from Elephant Island to South Georgia and Joshua Slocum finding an error in the almanac because the calculations didn’t match his dead reckoning.
Thursday July 13th, 2023
The wind on Thursday was forecast to be southerly at 10 to 15 all day, so my plan was to first motor south through the marsh down to Bald Head and get a picture of the lighthouse. Then I would hoist the sails and head up the Cape Fear River and along the way I’d swing by a small ruined lighthouse beside the Southport ferry terminal. Next, over to Battery Buchanan at Federal Point for some family history and then up through Snow’s Cut to a boat ramp on the eastern side of Pleasure Island.
I launched at 8 am from the Federal Point boat ramp and started motoring south. With the shallow water of the outgoing tide, unfamiliar narrow channels, and wind directly against me I figured there was no point in even trying to sail. The marsh is protected by a 3 mile line of rocks called… “The Rocks” which was built after the Civil War to tame the shoaling in the river. I imagine at high tide these things are underwater just waiting to rip your hull open.
It’s pretty shallow in places (maybe impassable at fully low tide?) and I relied on my centerboard centrally mounted, adjustable height depth finder to stay in the deeper water and protect the trolling motor. I knew there’d be a lot of motoring today, so I kept it to 150 watts. From testing I know that will push me at 3.8 mph for 15 miles in perfect conditions and since I planned to go 9-10 miles I figured that would give me some safety margin.
Lots of tight squeezes and I had to backtrack a few times since it was getting on for slack tide. Most of the marsh was thick piles of mud with jagged oyster shells sticking out. I think all the guys fishing back in here thought I was crazy. I thought one guy was being polite when he dropped down to hull speed as he approached me from behind. He gave me a good once over and then gunned it leaving me a steep wake to negotiate with no time to turn into it. He wasn’t the only oblivious person I ran into today.
I saw these towers all over today, I think they are range lights to help ships stay in the channel.
Eventually I made it out into the the Cape Fear River and just a straight shot to Bald Head, right? I mean, the lighthouse is right there on the horizon.
Not so fast, I had to bump my way through some 6″ water, backtrack, and get out and pull once. Straight ahead is the entrance to Bald Head Creek and at high tide there’d be plenty of water to get over the sandbar. My paper chart didn’t show some of these shoals and it was tough to see them on the satellite map on my phone’s screen in the bright sunlight.
Eventually I made my way up the creek past a row of multi million dollar houses and a herd of kayakers. Old Baldy was built in 1817 and is the oldest lighthouse in North Carolina. It was pretty windy on the river so on the way out I decided to see what would happen with the jib only. Plus I had all day to get up to the boat ramp, so speed wasn’t too much of an issue.
I headed across the inlet and started to realize ferries were all aver the place. There’s a constant loop of them from Bald Head to Southport to Fort Fisher. I have very little experience being around big commercial boats like this, so I generally tried to hug the right hand side of the channel. It was surprising how quickly you can go from deep water to scraping the bottom.
Up the river a thunderstorm was brewing and I caught a glimpse of a flash of lightning. About 10 minutes later someone on the radio reported their boat was hit, but fortunately no injuries. Pretty shallow water through there. When planning the trip I thought I might be able to pick my way through to cut the corner, but once I was here it didn’t seem like a good idea to try.
Made the turn around Battery Island doing 4 mph. By now the tide had turned and was helping me along. My jib is 23 square feet so not all that big, but it was nice to see what it could do. I saw someone walking along the beach and thought it was strange since the island is closed for bird nesting during the summer. I figured maybe it was ok if you stayed below the high tide line, but shortly someone got on the radio to tattle to the Coast Guard.
Up closer to the ferry terminal the channel gets narrower and I really tried to stay out of everyone’s way. Ferries were going by left and right and there was a steady stream of huge yachts heading north.
I much preferred the traffic of a flock of pelicans flying by.
Up near the ferry terminal I swung in to get a picture of Price’s Creek lighthouse which dates to 1850. This is the last remnant of a system of range lights that guided ships up the river to Wilmington. It was a bit of a risky detour since I couldn’t sail upwind and the wind and current were moving me along at a pretty good clip, so I lowered the trolling motor and got ready to make a hasty departure.
When the centerboard started bumping the bottom I declared the photo op over and gave the trolling motor the full 30 amps and we escaped from being embayed by the shoreline and a long pier leading to an ADM food processing plant. Up near those piling I hit some wild waves. I guess the normal waves bent around and interfered with each other because it felt like being in a washing machine with waves popping up and disappearing all around.
After I got back in the channel I started following the map and ticking off buoys while keeping out of the way of ferries and spoil islands.
Next I cut over towards the Fort Fisher ferry terminal close to where I launched. That mound of sand with the two trees is what’s left of Battery Buchanan which was a Civil War earthwork guarding the New Inlet. At that time it was one of two entrances into the Cape Fear River which was vitally important for the Confederacy since Wilmington was the last port blockade runners could use to deliver supplies and export goods.
My great great grandfather was unfortunately on the wrong side during the Civil War, but as a history lover it has been fascinating teasing out the details of his service. He started out in a light artillery unit, transferred to the Merrimac for the battle with the Monitor, guarded Fort Sumter for a year, served on the ironclad Fredericksburg and commerce raider Chickamauga, and finally manned Battery Buchanan during the battle of Fort Fisher where he was hit in the leg resulting in its amputation.
The battery was armed with two 11″ Brooke smoothbores and two 10″ Columbiads. The Brooke guns weighed nearly 12 tons and the Columbiads nearly 8. He was wounded during the first battle presumably when they repulsed Union ships dragging the inlet for torpedos. I’ve always wondered which gun he was on… those two outside ones had a 180º field of fire but little protection.
Here’s a view from the top looking toward what was once the New Inlet with the Cape Fear river on the right. That parking lot is the boat ramp where I launched. Hard to imagine that just up the road at Fort Fisher was the biggest naval bombardment and amphibious assault until D-Day. Apparently 50,000 shells were fired at it over the two battles.
Anyway, with that family history detour out of the way I started back up the river. By this point the winds were getting a bit lighter so I stopped to run up the spritsail. I’d put a preemptive reef in when I rigged at the boat ramp and decided to leave it in since I noticed the wind tended to pick up later in the afternoon. Along the way the 750′ 3,800 TEU Polar Costa Rica container ship passed me going from Wilmington to Savanah. I have never been this close to anything so huge and even though there was plenty of room, it was still a little terrifying.
After he passed, I idly watched the wake wash up on the spoil island ahead with a continuous rumble. Then as I got closer I saw the ripple from the tanker turn into two feet of foaming water rushing right towards me! I quickly realized that when I turned to nose into the wave I’d be sailing by the lee, so I jibed and shifted my weight aft to help raise the bow. Right before the wave hit I just knew I’d have a mountain of water over the bow.
Suddenly the bow was pointed at the sky, the rub rails blasted the water out to the side, and then a quick slam back down as the sails went “whooomp” and everything was ok. I doubt a dozen drops of spray made it in.
After surviving the tanker wake I headed back down the channel ticking off the buoys. A buddy of mine is a photographer so I photoshopped two pages of charts together into one big one and had him print it off on his 3′ printer. So much easier than squinting at my phone screen in the sun! Off to the left is the Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point and they have a large restricted area along the west bank of the river right out to the channel. When researching I was a little worried I might accidentally wander into it, but there are plenty of signs close together to let you know.
After about 3 miles of mostly having the river to myself I made a right for the long narrow channel to Snow’s Cut. Plenty of powerboats flying along through here. It was pretty obvious I needed to keep green on the right, but I didn’t understand until later that in the ICW you keep greens on your right to go north. And the yellow splotch signifies it’s an ICW buoy.
Blasting along on a broad reach at 7-7.5 mph was the fastest sailing of the day. With the reefed mainsail I didn’t even have to get on the side deck to hike once! I think this might be the first time I haven’t had to hike like my life depended on it.
Into Snow’s Cut. This was dug in 1930 to connect the Cape Fear River to Myrtle Grove Sound and avoid the Frying Pan Shoals which stretch out 30 miles from Cape Fear. I managed to sail about halfway through before the wind became pretty flukey.
The jet skis flying through here were insane, but I guess that’s to be expected when there’s a jet ski rental place on both ends of the cut.
Eventually I gave up trying to sail and lowered the trolling motor. Up by the bridge little eddies were forming around the piling and I feel like the tide must be meeting in the middle because it was definitely helping me before.
Eventually I made it to the ramp and anchored and got everything tidied up. Perfect timing since my wife and folks were just driving off the beach. I sat back to finish my lunch (does anyone else just not have time to eat when sailing?) and watch pelicans dive into the water just off the port bow. I must have been in prime real estate.
I’ve been really impressed with the trolling motor setup. The model airplane propeller has worked really well, maybe 1/4″ of the tips have gotten chewed up but I just round it over with a file periodically. Today I motored 11.5 miles and consumed right at 614 Wh of energy. From my motor testing I thought 50 Wh per mile would be a good estimate for planning purposes and I was glad to see that the real world result of 53 Wh per mile matches pretty well. Especially since I was mostly motoring against a pretty decent breeze. All in all I went 27.8 miles in 8 hours with a top speed of 7.6 mph.
And the day just wouldn’t be complete without one last oblivious person. As dad was backing the trailer into the water and I’m motoring toward him, a lady on the dock decides it’s the perfect time to throw a cast net directly between us. I made no effort to slow down or avoid it, so she reeled it in pretty quick!
I finally had a day to go on a long daysail, so I set out from a boat ramp on the Piankatank River and sailed around to the Rappahannock and up to a ramp on Carter’s Creek. I ended up going 33 miles in 7.75 hours with an average speed of 4.25 mph and a max of 7.4 mph. The Piankatank section was mostly upwind and things got a lot easier after I rounded the long skinny Stove Point at the mouth of the river.
After getting everything rigged at the ramp I motored over into the lee of Berkley Island to raise the sails. Then I set out on a light air upwind course towards the bridge.
Looking up the Piankatank. It’s been hazy from the wildfires in Canada lately, although fortunately it didn’t smell too smokey today.
Tacking upwind in light air against the incoming tide took forever, but I eventually got through the bridge and the sailing improved. I’ve heard it’s almost always faster to row if you’re going dead upwind and it took me 45 minutes to tack 2.8 miles on a 0.9 mile route as the crow flies.
After rounding the bend at Ginney Point I could just make out the Chesapeake Bay. Way off in the haze is Stove Point on the left and Gwynn’s Island on the right. Along the way I went from sailing downwind to upwind in the space of 50′. It was really cool how there was a flat calm section of water between the two opposing wind directions.
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to point high enough to get around Stove Point, but I just managed to sneak by. I saw a Hobie Cat and Sunfish on Fishing Bay, and a paddle boarder and windsurfer out on the bay side. From here on it was downwind the rest of the day.
Rounding Stingray Point. The waves were stacking up pretty well since I was heading through a shallow area. In 1608 Captain John Smith ran aground along here on a falling tide in their ~30′ shallop while exploring the Chesapeake Bay. Provisions were running low so the crew began fishing and Smith managed to nail a stingray to the bottom with his sword. While removing it he was stung on the wrist and nearly died. But, he recovered and had the ray for supper! The generall historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles
Starting across the mouth of the Rappahannock at 6-7 mph. It was so hazy I couldn’t see the 110′ bridge 8 miles away. Quite a few sailboats out here.
Looking back at Stingray Point and some of the waves were at least 2′ but it’s hard to capture that in a photo.
Heading towards Windmill Point where I’ve launched many times. The boat was rolling pretty good and it took some concentration on the tiller to not to broach, but it didn’t seem particularly out of control.
After turning at Windmill Point I started on a broad reach and decided I was overpowered as the wind had picked up. I hove to for 10 minutes to put a reef in and drifted 0.3 miles NE at 2 mph. I just about buried the rail when I jibed to get going again, but fortunately the side decks kept the majority of the water out.
Heading up the Rappahannock past Mosquito Point. Quite a few boats were out and there was a tugboat and barge in the mouth of the river coming behind me. They often drop barges near Cherry Point to the east of the bridge which is where this guy ended up going.
Halfway to the bridge the wind died down some so I hove to and shook out the reef. It took 6 minutes and I only drifted 80 yards due to the tide and wind opposing each other. It took a long time to figure out how to reef a spritsail efficiently, but I think I’ve got it pretty much as good as it’ll get.
I decided to cut over towards the 3rd span on the Middlesex side of the bridge and see if I could get a picture of my boat with the traffic cam. Along the way there’s this marker that is steadily deteriorating. As a kid sailing my Sunfish I’d come by here and it’d give me the heebie jeebies that this metal structure was just sticking up out of the water. It’s still a little unnerving.
No luck with the traffic cam… the app’s video feed got stuck and after it refreshed I was out of view. So I cut back across the river for Carter’s Creek. It’s a curving, narrow entrance and there’s always tons of boats blasting by throwing up big wakes.
Once out of the entrance I got the rig down and motored 3/4 mile to the ramp where my wife met me. The trolling motor I’ve been working on did well and it pushed me along at 3 mph against the wind. This is my kind of ramp, there’s a $5 honor box and none of this applying for a permit that takes two weeks to approve like the lake our friends live on in Maryland.
I recently installed a hitch to our Toyota Highlander so this was the first outing with the trailer! The hitch was a pretty simple installation, it took less than two hours and only required some minor cutting to a plastic fairing under the car. The electrical was just a simple plug that fit an existing socket under the trunk space.
I’ve never been entirely confident in the trailer’s wheel bearings so I decided to take a look at them in preparation for a 750 mile trip and I’m glad I did. The tapered bearing surfaces on the hubs were full of pits and dings and both rear grease seals were shredded. I bought some new hubs (4 on 4 that fit L44649 bearings plus a pair of 1.983″ x 1.249″ grease seals) and changed them out. It’s a messy job but I’m pleased to say that after 3 hours at 60+ mph the hubs were barely warm to the touch.
I thought my great idea of running individual ground wires to the tail lights would solve my wiring problems forever, but that was not the case. Lately I’ve noticed the right rear light was intermittent or really dim, so after a brief search I found the ground wire had basically turned to powder. Everything was wrapped tightly in electrical tape and I used solder shrink fittings so I have no idea where the corrosion came from. The insulation was crumbly for nearly a foot but curiously the two wires beside it in the same run were unaffected. I soldered on a new section of wire and that solved the problem.
With the trailer sorted I got all the sailing stuff packed into the boat plus the camping stuff I’ve been working on lately. I haven’t been sailing yet this year, but the rig has had all the bugs worked out that I can think of. Hopefully setting up at the ramp won’t take too long.
Last year I bought a boat cover to keep the road grime out of the boat. I finally got around to cutting the straps to the right size and melting the ends so I don’t have a mile of excess to tie up. Driving home there were periods of torrential rain and the inside was completely dry when I arrived.
We took off for my in-laws in New Jersey with an overnight stop at a friend’s place in Maryland. I’m not sure I get the appeal of townhouses… maneuvering an F250 around the narrow parking lot, parking a ways away because the nearby visitor spots were taken, no yard, no garage… Not for me! I much prefer not being able to see my neighbor’s houses for the woods.
Unfortunately it was a washout the entire time we were in New Jersey. I really wanted to do an overnight trip continuing on from my trip last year on Barnegat Bay and while Tuesday was marginal, I really didn’t want to be out there on Wednesday. We’ll probably go back towards the end of summer and I’ll try again.
We had some friends come visit the day after New Years and the weather was nice enough to go for a trolling motor cruise in the afternoon. It was a really low tide and I had to row the first hundred yards away from our dock and have the girls sit up on the bow deck to trim the boat out. Eventually we plowed our way through the mud and into deeper water where I could lower the motor. Coming back the tide had risen enough to where I could slowly drift/motor to the dock with the propeller half out of the water. We went 3.4 miles in an hour and ten minutes. This was the last hurrah for the ~6 year old lead acid starting battery as I’ve since bought a 50Ah LiFePO4 which is amazing.