Well, that was fun! I slept during the heat of the day today after the excitement of charging down the coast yesterday. The passage of a cold front late Tuesday brought a favorable west breeze off the land and Ron and I took advantage of it. We were underway at 0615 and motorsailed for an hour to get well clear of Sandy Hook. There were several other sailboats and we smoked them all except for a big beautiful Hinckley. We were keeping up with them till there was a lull in the wind and they pulled ahead. The forecast had been for 10-15 with gusts to 25 but in reality it was 15 to 25 and eventually going up to 30. A single reef was used at the start along with the working jib. At the middle of the afternoon we were really punishing the boat and I doused the jib and replaced it with the storm jib. The seas at that point were quite confused and as Ron will attest we were getting soused with large dollops of seawater. We also had a whale that breached nearby. The point of sail had turned from a beam reach to closehauled as the coastline trended southwesterly. I was wearing my tether as I moved about the decks. Much to my surprise we passed Atlantic City before nightfall. After sunset the wind dropped off and we motorsailed the rest of the way to Cape May, arriving there at about 0100. We elected to spend the night just jogging slowly back and forth with just the single reefed mainsail and a line tied loosely to the tiller, a combo that has worked well in the past. And while we were motorsailing we used the autopilot which worked flawlessly. But we hand steered during the 70 or so miles when it was really cranking. Don't yet trust the autopilot to handle that. It was really great to have Ron Rost along. He made what would have been a grueling trip into a real treat. And his music! He brought his mountain dulcimer and recorder along. What a treat! Thanks Ron! I dropped him at the dock this morning so he could make his way home.
Best to all Charlie
No comments:
Post a Comment