Summer Cruise Day 21

Yet another day of light airs on the Chesapeake Bay. Luckily, the winds were still blowing from the South, carrying us North. Maddie seemed unimpressed by our slow progress, as we ghosted along under full sail. I reminded her how we don't have to do any work and we are leisurely being pushed along in the right direction. 

Once again, as the sun began to set, the winds picked up drastically. We lowered the drifter and put a reef into the main. Sailing under staysail and reefed main, we worked our way towards the lee of a charted island with the intention of rowing Morty to shore. 

By the time we got into this narrow anchorage with horrible holding, the winds were in excess of 27 knots and the sun was on the horizon. We had all good intentions of taking Morty to shore this afternoon, but it wasn't practical. The island looked much smaller in person than it did on the chart, which made me think it might be all marsh, as these quickly change in shape and size. The island offered no protection from the wind, and only served as a minor breakwater to calm the seas. 

Poor Morty knew we were planning on taking him and was very upset when we changed our minds.

The anchorage we chose had a hard bottom and was only 8 feet deep. Once we dropped the hook, we drifted back into deeper water to protect the keel and rudder from groundings, but hoped that the anchor would hold on the hard bottom. 

We went to sleep with 280' of chain out with the anchor sitting 8 feet under water. All this rode couldn't compensate for the poor holding and we began to drag. By choosing the anchorage properly, we were ok with the dragging anchor because we were windward to a very nice anchorage of soft sand. The Bruce Claw slid 90 feet across the hard bottom until it arrived on the soft sand and sunk right in!

We were in bed when the anchor dragged, feeling the boat turn beam to the seas as we dragged and then turning bow to the wind as the anchor took hold again. Not the best sleep, but we did get to rest before arriving in South River the next day.

Summer Cruise Day 20

Today was another easy sail North. The winds were light but still blowing us right up the bay. I raised the anchor early in the morning and set the drifter and full main and began waiting for the wind to fill the sails. 

We sailed close to Tangier Island which brought back memories from our engagement. Then we jibed and made our way towards a quiet anchorage.

As the afternoon drew on, the winds again began to build. We switched headsails to the smaller jib in preparation for the stronger winds to come as we made our way toward the lee of the land. 

Hiding behind the hills, we were very protected from the wind and laid to the strong current that ran through this river. 

Another lazy day as we made our way North towards Fells Point, MD.

Tieing up to Larger Cleats

I rowed Morty from Fells Point to Under Armor on the other side of the harbor for his morning walk. When we arrived at the other side, I proceeded to tie up Tooth. 

The cleat was massive! I use 1/2" three strand for Tooth's docklines because I usually tie them to the cleats on Wisdom (a Morgan 45). Smaller line would get lost on the large cleats of the Morgan, just like they got lost on this cleat.

If you come across this situation, tie a bowline either through the cleat or around the base of the horns. 

Tanbark vs White Sails Part 1

When it comes time to picking sails for your boat, most people focus on sizes and shaped of the sails.

How high is the clew? 
How low is the tack? 
How full is the draft?

The sails will always be white, just like every other sail on every other boat. They do offer some selection of color when it comes to the UV strip on a furling headsail. What about the color of the sail itself?

There are two main colors of dacron available: White and Tanbark.

Back in the days of cotton sails, rot was a critical problem. To combat this, they would be tanned by soaking them in tannins from tree bark.The result was a stained sail called Tanbark that was more resistant to rot, mildew, and mold. The color these sails took on was a reddish brown. 

Then began the age of plastics and so cotton sails became a thing of the past, and so has the treatment process of tanning. Dacron is composed of polyethylene fibers which is white. 

White sails have many advantages:

They are cheaper
They can be seen from a very far distance
They are easier to see to trim for night sailing

Their cons are:

They are blinding to look at in the sun
They show stains and dirt instantly
They can't be seen in fog or haze

While they are less expensive, the price difference is only around 10-15%, which isn't much to pay when your eye comfort is at hand.

The argument about being seen from a distance is a good one to discuss. The idea is ships can see us far off on the horizon, but I don't think they actually look around. I have had them creep up on me multiple times, never contacting me on the radio or sounding their horn. I have spoken with friends who are ship captains, and they have told me that they don't look around too much because they rely on their radar screen where they can easily see sailboats on their display.  

The other argument is that if you are shipwrecked and need rescue, you can raise your main and they will see you to come to your rescue. If you are shipwrecked, you probably won't be able to raise the mainsail due to the damage sustained to the vessel. As far as being found, you should be carrying emergency rescue devices such as flares, orange fog, and an EPIRB. If you are solely relying on being spotted by your white sails for rescue, you many want to reconsider your emergency procedure protocol.

There is no discussion about trimming the sails by night. White sails will reflect the soft moonlight just as well as they will reflect the strong blinding sunlight. By night, the draft stripes will show up on the the white sails allowing one to properly trim the sails just as well as one could during the day. 

I know that I can't see my tanbark sails in the dark. They blend into the night sky and I am forced to either trim blind or blind myself by turning on a flashlight. This wasn't such an issue for myself and Maddie because we don't sail by night. We like to get a good nights sleep and continue sailing in the morning. In the bay, we anchor for the night, and offshore, we heave to for the night.

In Part 2, we will look more at tanbark sails and what they bring to the table.

Summer Cruise Day 19

We decided to leave at the break of dawn to catch the tail end of the ebbing tide, be clear of the inlet, and ride the flooding tide up the bay. Luckily I set to free us from our slip much earlier than needed, turns out I needed all the time to get out of the slip.

We were behind a very beamy catamaran, the wind was blowing us onto the pier, and we had no water ahead of us. On the aerial picture below, we were tied up where the dinghy is in front of the cat. The cat was a bit further back. 

I untied and tried to prop walk out of the slip, but the wind was blowing me back onto the pier. Then I tried to spring out of the slip, but the wind once again pushed me right back into the slip. Last, I tried to ground the bow on the shallow water ahead of us and swing the stern out, then reverse hard to back out of the slip. This started to work, but then the wind picked up more and we drifted back into the slip. All these attempts seemed futile, as we were unable to get out of the slip. I decided to warp out of the marina without using the engine and this proved to work the best. 

I tied a 300' 1/2" three strand nylon rope to the bow cleat and hopped into Tooth (our rowboat) and rowed the line to the neighboring and windward pier. I tied the end off to the cleat on the pier and rowed back to Wisdom (our Morgan 45). Standing on the bow of Wisdom, I began pulling the warp line from the bow which pulled me right off of the pier, into the wind, and straight to the other pier. As we reached the other pier, I hopped off of the bow and pulled the stern in with a stern line. With the boat tied up to the neighboring pier, I walked it forward to the very end. After securing the dock lines, I raised the sails and released the lines. We were sailing out of the marina without the need to rely on our engine!

Once under sail, we were on a run out of the protected harbor. This helped as we were a slack tide, so we needed to get out of our cove as quickly as possible to catch the flood current that would wash us up the bay. 

Once out in the bay, the wind died completely. We moved along very slowly thanks to the current. The drifter and main were set and waiting for any puff of wind.

We sailed very close to Point No Point Lighthouse and saw more pelicans roosting on it.

A bit further North, we came across more pelicans!

As the day progressed, the wind continued to build. We switched from the drifter to the jib and were moving at a steady 7 to 8 knots. By dusk, the winds were holding steady around 20 knots. We decided to anchor soon and I found an anchorage on the chart that would serve as a wind block. Our plan was to hole in behind the hill and hide in the windshadow. 

As the sun set, the wind was blowing 25 to 27 knots steady. I had wished that we had reefed, but we didn't while the sun was still up. I thought about reefing in the entrance to the anchorage and thought that the rigging is able to withstand these immense forces while propelling us along at 9 knots. If I reefed, our speed would drop markedly and we would arrive at the anchorage even later. I hedged my bets, counting on the wind to drop as soon as we got behind land, and then needing the extra sail area.

We were full sail heading towards land, with high seas and strong winds entering a foreign harbor by night. As we entered, I noticed that the marked channel was very curvy, but the winds allowed us to make it through with only 1 tack. Our plan was to continue until the wind died and then drop the hook. We were going deeper and deeper into the anchorage waiting to find the wind shadow. 

All of a sudden, our speed went from 8 knots to 3 knots as the wind stopped all at once. We were waiting for this moment for quiet some time now and were pleased to know that we had arrived. We ghosted along to a small knoll in the middle of the bay where the water was only 10 feet deep and dropped the hook. We were a little more than a mile from any point of land but protected from the wind. 

After the sails were lashed down, the snubber tied on to the anchor chain, and dinner being prepared; I looked around on the chart plotter to see where we were exactly. We were in the bay just south of the opening to Deltaville! The thought crossed my mind to pull up anchor and go into there for the night, but the idea of navigating that shallow entrance in the dark was not convincing me to leave our quiet, remote, and protected anchorage. We stayed put for the night, sleeping soundly on our return North.