Tangier Island

Here's a little history and information about Tangier Island.  It's in the Chesapeake bay, 14 miles from the West coast, and 7 from the East.  It's part of the state of Virginia.  There's only one town on the island with a small population hovering around 700.  It was important to us that we visit the island on this trip because of its large erosion problem.  It is very likely that the town will need to be abandoned within the next fifty years since the island is rapidly eroding away with each passing year.  The people who live there are extremely dedicated to preserving it, however, for as long as they possibly can.  It's been settled since 1770 and its inhabitants didn't take long to move from an agriculture of farming to one based around crabs and oysters.  The incredible thing about the island is that, due to its seclusion from the mainland, its people rarely left and had a history of not being very welcoming to newcomers.  This preserved the very distinctive dialect that Herby and I heard from the locals that most likely has been passed down from those first settlers in the 1700s.  It also means that there are only a handful of last names on Tangier as you saw on the gravestones. 

Now I said that the first people to settle the island arrived in 1770, but these people were by no means the first to visit.  John Smith is credited as the first European to explore Tangier.  He gave it its name because he thought it bore a striking resemblance to Tangier, Africa.  He went on to name a neighboring island "Smith Island." He wasn't very creative.  Before him, however, the island was often visited by Pocomoke Indians.  Although we didn't find any, there are supposedly a great deal of arrowheads scattered around the beaches as evidence that they had been there.

Today, the island is in great danger.Many houses have been abandoned, their inhabitants forced to retreat to mainland Virginia due to the intense erosion.The water creeps inward on all sides further and further each year.Some families are desperately trying to sell their soon to be worthless property at extremely cheap prices, while others are doing everything in their power to remain on their island home.The population is shrinking right along with the island mostly due to the new generations of its inhabitants.There are very few opportunities for Tangier youth.Most go to college on the mainland and never return.There is very little promise of even a career in crabbing or oyster farming now and the economy is mainly reliant on tourism.A tour boat arrives each day at 11am and leaves at 3pm.We watched as the people walked around the island, took ten minute golf cart tours, and slipped in and out of quiet gift shops.After they left, the whole island seemed to let out a breath it had been holding.The locals came out and chatted in their special dialect, the gift shops closed, the children played soccer outside the school.It's a simple existence, and they choose to keep it that way.It was a pleasure to witness the energy of the island, both the sadness, and the hope.

Motorsailing

Sailing and motoring are often viewed as two different and mutually exclusive aspects of boating. The truth is, sometimes, they can work together beautifully! 

The idea behind sailing is that the wind will rush through your sails at an appropriate angle, allowing your sails to generate lift and pull your yacht through the water. The idea behind motoring is that the rotational energy from the motor will be transmitted to a propeller used to push your yacht through the water. 

On days with plenty of wind, sailing can exist as the sole method of powering your vessel. On days with no wind, there is no way for the sails to power you and the trusty motor will provide mechanical propulsion to keep you moving. But what about days where the wind is a little light?  

If there doesn't seem to be enough wind to power your yacht, you could always supplement your speed with a bit of throttle from the motor. The idea is simple, as your motor pushes your yacht through the water, it will also push you through the air and create apparent wind over your vessel. This apparent wind can then be used to power your sails and provide a nice balance of power, between sails and motor, working synergistically to motorsail you along at a comfortable speed. 

While motorsailing might sound like the solution to low wind days, there are a few important factors that need to be present for it to work well: 

There needs to be some wind present. 

The true wind can't be coming from directly ahead or directly behind you. 

If there is no wind at all, meaning you are completely becalmed, then motorsailing will be futile. As you move in any direction, the apparent wind will always be coming from directly ahead and the sails will luff just like if you were caught in irons. Having the sails up might make you feel like you are motorsailing, but the energy wasted on making the sails flap and slat is going to be robbed from your potential forward speed. 

The true wind needs to be coming from any direction other than directly ahead or directly behind you. If the wind is from directly ahead, motor sailing will only increase the amount of apparent wind coming directly at the vessel and you will actually suffer in speed because of air drag. If the wind is directly behind you, as you move forward, the apparent wind will become even less. 

Having the wind off to an angle, just like if you were sailing, is the trick. The apparent wind will always move forward as you motor sail, making it appear that you are on a close reach, no matter where the wind is coming from. As you begin to move forward, simply trim your sails to the apparent wind and you will see your speed go up a little bit as the sails begin to help provide a bit of forward power as well. 

We were once becalmed in a naval firing range testing area (while not in use, obviously) and had no chance of getting out of there. It was getting late and we wanted to anchor somewhere for the night, but anchoring was prohibited there as well! We motored along at 2 knots for a while until a slight zephyr came over us. We raised the mainsail and staysail and found that our speed increased to 3.5 knots! I then cut the power from our electric motor and our speed dropped down to 0.3 knots.  

As you can see, the sails alone provided almost no speed in the light breeze, but with the apparent wind from the motor, we were able to scoot along at an appreciable speed for having no worthy wind around us. 

One last scenario where motorsailing can pay huge dividends is when pinching. If you are sailing along and there isn't really enough breeze to make the keel as effective as it could be, a touch of throttle will mend all these ailments.  

As you sail, the wind is actually pushing your yacht to leeward but the keel offers some resistance to this motion. As you move forward through the water, the water passing over the keel provides lift, just like the sails do, and pulls your yacht to windward. This cancels out the leeward slip and allows your yacht to move to windward. 

This system only works if you have enough speed of water passing over your keel. As you move slower, the keel is less effective as a hydrofoil and you begin to slip to leeward. If you are trying to pinch, then you will begin to loose speed and will slip to leeward. Obviously, if you are pinching, it is because there is something to leeward that you are trying to avoid and slipping further to leeward would be deleterious to your navigational plan. Eventually, you will be forced to tack and sail away from this obstacle, only to tack back and clear the obstruction. All of this takes time, and if you are trying to get someplace as quickly as possible, this could be viewed as time wasted.

The alternative in this situation would be to motorsail just a bit as you pinch. The propeller will give you the speed you need to maintain the functionality of the keel as a hydrofoil while the sails pinch with the close apparent wind. Once you round your mark, you can then turn off the motor and fall to leeward as you resume sailing on a normal and relaxed pace. 

We have used this trick multiple times, when tacking would cost us around an hour of additional sailing time. This has saved us hours in our arrival and meant the difference between reaching our anchorage with sunlight versus having to anchor in unprotected waters for a night because we didn't make it in time. 

To Cover or Not To Cover Your Sails

When you anchor for a storm, you might be focused on such things as bottom conditions and the amount of scope to let out. While anchoring techniques are very important for safely riding out a storm, another part of storm preparedness is how you ready the rest of your yacht.

The anchor will be forced to hold your yacht against the water pressure from waves and tides, as well as the wind pressure from the air on your yacht.

Bulky items on deck, as well as dodgers and rigging will all add wind resistance to the equation and put more strain on the anchor as it struggles to hold you to the bottom. Reducing the strain on the anchor is wise, as it gives all your gear an easier time during the blow. Roller furling headsails are bulky and offer a great deal of windage, especially up high! Hank on headsails offer the distinct advantage that when the sail is lowered to the deck, the stay is bare and offers minimal resistance to the wind. But what about the sail that is now on the deck?

Should you bag your sails or simply lash them to the deck before a storm approaches?

Bagged sails offer the advantage that they are inside a smooth covering. This will reduce turbulence as the air passes over the sail and will in turn create less drag. If the sail is simply lashed to the deck, the luff of the sail will be flacked at the stay and will offer a lot of resistance to the wind.

Looking at the situation from this standpoint only, it would make sense that bagging the sails would be ideal before a storm, as it would make everything on your yacht more streamline and thus less drag.

The problem with bagging your sails is that if you begin to drag anchor and need to sail away to safety, your sails are all bagged up! You now need to take additional time to uncover the sails and get everything setup so that you can sail away to safety! In moments where you are dragging anchor onto a lee shore, every second counts and having the sails bagged up might result in you being careened on the lee shore!

If you simply lashed your sails down, all you would need to do in this scenario would be to untie the and begin working your way to safety!

Based on these assumptions, and the fact that we don't have a diesel motor to power us to safety, we choose to lash the sails down to the deck when anchoring for a storm. The sails are kept with halyards and sheets attached, but lashed to the toenail with sail ties. Should we need to start sailing for any reason, all we need to do is untie the sails and raise them up to begin clawing our way off the lee shore.

Storms are never comfortable events to endure, but careful preparation can make your memories of the storms much less eventful.

Awaiting for Weather to Improve

We are anchored in the harbor of Tangier Island, where we have good protection from the seas to the West and North of us. This works well for us, as a cold front is forecasted to be coming in and blowing from the North-West! Tangier Island is flat and low, so it will not offer any protection from the wind, which means that the seas in the harbor can get rather choppy.

We explored the town and rowed back to the boat the day we got here, arriving back to the boat in a surreal world of absolute stillness. It was hard to imagine that such a world would turn into a chaotic whirlpool in just a few hours!

Around 3am, the winds began to build, and I let out a bit more chain to give our anchor extra help in holding us still in the water. I also tied on the snubber to reduce the noise transmitted through the chain as well as to reduce the shock loads when we ride up a wave crest. After everything was well set, I went back to sleep, knowing that the conditions were only going to deteriorate as the night progressed.

When the morning arrived, the winds were blowing a steady 20 to 25 knots with gusts to 30 knots. The seas in the harbor are 3 feet, and we are really lurching around! We had plans to go to shore today with our bicycles and ride around the island, but all that had to be put on hold.

The seas are rough and the wind is intense! We knew that attempting to row the quarter of a mile to shore in these conditions would be ludicrous, especially with two bicycles thrown in the dinghy!

Instead, we slept, read, and ate as we waited for the winds to calm down. Listening to the forecast provided sour news. The high winds were slated to last the entire day and into the next morning. With this news, we knew that we had no choice but to hunker down and wait it out.

It is actually hard to find things to do when you know you are stuck in one place. You feel like everything you try to do is simply being done to waste time and make tomorrow come faster! The good side to this situation is we know we aren't going anywhere, so we can spend time making all sorts of delicious foods to eat to pass the time!

The rocking of the boat can make such activities harder to do, as your whole world is being tossed around you as you wait out your time. The important thing to remember is that it is temporary and as soon as the winds die down, we will be able to resume our usual exploring and adventures!

Tangier Island

When we arrived at Tangier, we first went to the sand bar that extends off the southern tip of the island. The beach was covered with little sand pipers dancing with the surf as they searched for food to eat at the waters edge. We walked out to the point in search of a large flock of pelicans that is known to roost there, but as we were approaching, they all took flight and sat in the water just beyond the point.

Disappointed, we decided to head into the town and check out the locals!

Instead of walking from the sand bar, we decided to row through the marsh and head into the town. This was a mistake! The island is sinking into the marsh as the sea levels are rising. At present time, the streets supposedly go under at nigh tide and several parts of the island have been abandoned as the island has gone underwater!

We were, naturally, rowing in from the sinking side, and we were confused by all the abandoned looking buildings! Navigating a maze of marsh canals was tricky as there is no cell phone signal on the island, she we were unable to pull up an aerial photo of the place to plot a route. Instead, we had to choose which canal to row through and hope that it led to town and not to a dead end!

Me made landfall a few times, thinking we could simply walk through some grass and into the town until we hopped out of the dinghy and realized how much marsh existed between us and the town! So, back into the dinghy we went to prod deeper into the marsh maze. We eventually came across a bridge and saw golf carts traversing it! We made it to a road that would lead us into town!

We tied the dinghy to a sign post by the bridge and climbed up into the street! Some of the locals we came across were friendly and would wave or say hello, others would simply ignore you and speed on by.

We followed the road for a while as we made our way through neighborhoods and into the heart of town. The town was quite interesting, there were gift shops, ice cream shops, and a general store, along with a slew of cats and locals that had come out into the streets. The island has a ferry that comes and goes once a day, so during those hours the town is full of tourists. We had arrived much after the last boat had left, so we got to see the locals that had come out after the tourists had left.

As the sun began to get low on the horizon and the insects began to bite, we decided to head back to the dinghy and row our way out of the maze before nightfall. Leaving the island, the sunset was gorgeous! The air was completely becalmed and the water was like glass.

The colorful sky continued onto the water with only a faint silhouette from the low island. As we left the marsh, the sky went dark and the world around us became hazy! It was a good think I left the anchor light on when we left because the tiny star of our masthead light shined above the haze that surrounded us. It felt like we were transported to another world, where the stars and moon shined brightly on the waters surface, only disturbed by the lapping of the oars as we quietly approached our floating home.