The grey-haired sailor on the dock summed it up by saying “You got more guts than I do, but I’m not too sure about brains.” In hindsight he was right. It was January 17, 2015 and I had just made a single-handed, overnight passage from Cambridge, Maryland, to Hampton in my just-purchased Catalina 30 MoonShadow. Although it was a bright sunny day, temperatures the night before had dipped into the 20’s which is a little daunting for a 70 year old guy.
Ice in Cambridge.
I had made the trip up and down the bay several times previously in warm weather and knew it was an easy 3 day trip with stops at night. However, in winter it is hard to count on a 3 day weather window. Once I had made the trip with favorable winds in a fast multihull sailboat in about 14 hours. Therefore I figured I could do it in MoonShadow in 24 – 30 hours with favorable winds. That way I only needed a two day weather window – one for the trip and one for insurance against a bad forecast. Going up the bay the warm SW winds ahead of a frontal system are favorable. However, coming down the bay it is the cold NW, N, and NE winds behind the front that are favorable and I needed favorable winds.
So I started watching for a weather window. From Cambridge it is about 4 hours NW down the Choptank River to the bay and then S down the bay to Hampton. I wanted to leave Cambridge and go down the Choptank with the tide and I didn’t want to fight strong NW winds on that leg. After turning S, I wanted the northerly winds behind me coming down the bay. Therefore I was looking for a weak frontal passage with NW winds clocking to N, NE, and then SE over about a 24 hour period. On the evening of January 15 the forecast for the 16th and 17th looked about as good as I could expect with mid-morning high tide in Cambridge, early morning NW winds at 5 kts, 10-15 kts N to NE in the afternoon, 15 gusting 20 NE at night, and 10 SE the following morning. Off to Cambridge I went.
The author and skipper.
I had prepared as much as possible for the trip given the expected weather conditions. I had done the routine engine maintenance of belts, oil, filters, valve adjustment, water pump impeller, etc. since this was a new to me boat. I carried four VHF radios for redundant monitoring of all appropriate channels since there is a lot of ship traffic in the upper bay. I had three GPS chart plotters which I could keep on different scales and also serve for redundancy. I had a generator to provide backup power for my wind generator for powering the autopilot and electronics as well as powering an electric heater in case I got cold. I had spare fuel for both the ship engine and generator. I had multiple layers of cold weather gear topped by a “snowmobile” suit which effectively made the cold temperature a non-issue.
I had not anticipated how much colder the weather had been in Cambridge than Hampton and that there would be lingering snow there from earlier in the week. There had also been a heavy frost the night before so the entire dock was covered in a white layer which looked like a dusting of snow. The foredeck had an about a half inch of ice but fortunately the side deck on the “sunny side” was clear enough to enable me to get lines off. The water in the marina was frozen over with about a ¼ in of skim ice with thicker “ice bergs” floating in it. After breaking ice for a few hundred yards I was on my way.
The weather forecast held true and I had light NW winds on the nose as I motored down the Choptank with the outgoing tide. It was warming with a bright sun as I passed three Skipjacks dredging for oysters under sail. It was a beautiful sailing day on a beautiful river. The ice on the foredeck melted so I could now go forward if need be.
The last stretch of the Choptank is SW so I raised the main to motor sail to the bay. As predicted the wind had increased to about 5 - 10 and was clocking to N so I finally had the wind off the nose. Shortly after hoisting sail, I got a high temperature warning on the engine and shut it down. I knew this would lengthen my trip time as I had planned to motorsail all the way but the winds were nice and, after all, it is a sailboat.
The part of the trip during the night is just a blur now. I think sheer terror does you a favor in that respect. The winds had been forecast to increase to 15 gusting 20 from the N clocking to NE which would have been very favorable as my course was almost a dead downwind run due S to Hampton. However, the wind jumped from 5 - 10 to 30 + kts almost instantly, as if a squall line had passed even though the sky was clear. The sea increased rapidly as well to 4 – 5 ft and the autopilot was overpowered. The sea would lift the stern bringing part of the rudder out of the water and she would round up and reach off at terrific speed. Since I could not leave the helm, I couldn’t reduce sail as I still had a full main up in anticipation of the lighter winds. Once the speed increased and stern settled, the rudder could bring her back down wind only to repeat the process, sometimes with a violent jibe. I think I spent an hour or so more reaching back and forth across the bay than heading S. I knew I had plenty of sea room all the way S to Norfolk and just had to avoid the big ships and wait for it to blow over. I must admit that I am much calmer writing this now than I was then.
But the wind finally dropped and I was able to put the autopilot back on and assess damage. The slugs on my main luff had ripped off and it was partly wrapped around a spreader and pretty much useless for going to weather. But I was going downwind and decided to wait until morning to deal with it.
Morning broke bright and sunny off the mouth of the York River with a 5 kt wind from the E clocking to SE. As I turned into Hampton Roads it continued to clock aft of beam as predicted and followed me in. When I neared the dock I ran the engine a few minutes and then MoonShadow was home.
Total time for the ~130 nautical mile trip was about 27 hours and would have been significantly less if I could have used the engine, especially for the last part of the trip where I was only making about 2 kts coming into Hampton Roads from the York River in light winds. All in all the weather predictions were excellent except for a stretch in the middle of the night. That could have been due to local effects which simply are not predictable. There is a lesson here: I thought I had planned for everything and perhaps got a bit cocky. There are just things you can’t plan for and “get-home-itis” can take over.
But MoonShadow was home and the old sailor on the dock when I came in had it right: guts – maybe, brains – not too sure.
George C. Greene is a long time Chesapeake Bay sailor and a member of Old Point Comfort Yacht Club at Fort Monroe and Hampton YC in Hampton, VA. George serves as the Club’s Logistic Lieutenant and has two sailboats: MoonShadow, a Catalina 30 and Enterprise, a Stilletto 27.
