Weather Windows

When people hear the term "weather window" they usually think it means smooth sailing from Point A to Point B. This is far from the case. A weather window is smooth sailing from Point A, and nothing more.

When you first depart land, you are now as close to land as you could possibly be. Should a storm crop up and you heave to, you are now close to land and have less seaway available to you for drifting. The idea of a weather window is to give you that necessary seaway. 

When you depart land, you want at least two full days of smooth sailing so that you can make your way far from land. Your heading towards Point B is irrevalent at this point, as what you need to do is get as far from land as you can. In two days, you will usually make around 200 miles from land, and this will give you plenty of seaway to drift in should a storm arrive on day 3 of your voyage. 

When cruising, a storm near shore is something to avoid or seek safe harbor for. A storm at sea is something that you must deal with accordingly. Having that seaway is the best thing you can do to safely deal with a storm. 

This is why it is important to wait for a weather window to present itself that way you can slip out to sea and far from land without any hiccups. Now, if you see that a nasty storm is approaching on the third day but it is clear for a week after that, common sense would tell you to wait a little longer and enjoy the longer weather window instead of jumping out to sea to experience a storm. 

Nervousness Before a Journey

Maddie and I are waiting in Deltaville, VA, for a weather window to leave the United States and head out to Bermuda. As it stands, the forecast on various websites says that Saturday will be a good time to leave. We will need to leave here at dawn to make our way down the bay to the mouth of the Chesapeake on Saturday, then spend Sunday heading far from land, and hopefully Monday to cross the Gulf Stream. 

Tuesday starts some foul weather up in this area, but if we are far enough south, we will be able to avoid the worst of it and have a nice and gentle sail towards Bermuda. 

Maddie is totally calm about the whole ordeal because she fully trusts that when I say it is time to go, it will be safe for us to go. This is what makes me nervous. This will be our first ocean passage on our boat Wisdom and I want it to be a wonderful experience. I worry that if we run into some serious weather, that it might set a bad taste in her mouth for future passages. 

My other concern is if I say it is safe to go and something bad were to happen, I would have put her in danger. 

I know that no voyage would be complete without a storm at sea, and I know that we are far more than prepared for anything like that but I still worry. 

As our planned departure date approaches, I feel my heart race and my stomach twist with anxiety as we prepare to leave the safety of the marina we are tied up in to head out into the great blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean. 

This has been a dream of mine for 9 years, and now the moment I have been waiting for is 2 days ahead of me, and I would say that stage fright has struck!  

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.