Sound Off! Who went out over the weekend?

[MedSailor]

Seemed like the marina emptied out entirely around here. Beautiful weather and a 3 day holiday weekend! We did manage to go out (which is nearly impossible these days with school) and it was great.

Trip: Short sail in light airs across the sound and then anchor to watch the fireworks. Pitched a mizzen tent, ate, drank, and were merry.

Biggest achievement: Untying the docklines.

Worst part: Getting the bow blown off while backing out and having to cut off a police patrol boat to keep from bashing into my neighbor.

Things I learned: Poulsbo mud is great! Even with the anchor chain vertical the manual windlass wouldn't pull out the anchor.


Who else went out and what did you do/learn?

MedSailor

[scottyt]

i have spent the last 5 days on the boat at fells point by the baltimore inner harbor. with motor troubles my wife wont let me go out very far in to the bay.

but tonight i am home in the ac with the king size bed

[PalmettoSailor]

I learned to screen who you buddy boat with pretty carefully. lol. Our Yacht Club had a trip to St. Mary, roughly 47NM from our marina, for the concert and fireworks. The plan was originally to leave Thursday to get there early Friday, but they changed to leave Wednesday to be sure they got there before the anchorage filled up. I couldn't take that much time off, so we planned to stay closer to home. Well we got down to the boat Thursday afternoon, and ran into some friends who said they were going up to St. Mary's in one hop leaving early Friday AM. Well what the heck, we'll just tag along. Winds were forecast out of the north-northwest at 10-15, so it would be a beat all the way up. Oh, yeah, we'd hit just in time for the ebb tide, so the current would be against us also. Oh well, we could always duck in to one of the many nice rivers along the west shore between D'ville and the Potomac if things were too rough or we weren't making good time. A close reach on a port tack in 20G25 had us up to Smith Point in 5 hours of sailing in moderate chop. That only left 20 some odd miles to go, directly into the wind, so break out the iron genny and pound direcly into the famous Chesapeake chop which had built to average around 4', for another 4.5 hours to St. Mary's river where our buddy boat decides they've had enough, and are anchoring in the first suitable cove they can find. WTH? If I wanted a seculded anchorage I could have found one hours ago and you guys want to quit just when we reach calmer water? Sigh! We tagged along and joined them, but I really wish we'd have at least pushed on to see what the anchorage looked like. It likely was packed, but we could have had a look and gone back down to the cove we anchored in and still had the anchor down before dark. Anyway, we decided we had to go at least have a look at St Marys while we were so close so we went up in the AM Saturday to check it out, thinking we'd sail 1/2 the way back to Dville that aftenoon and get home early Sunday. After we'd looked around a while, our buddy boat let us know they planned to go all the way back to D'ville that day, leaving St Marys at noon! Crap, if I'd known you wanted to do that, I'd have argued for an early start and skip seeing the old settlement. The conditions were perfect for sailing down the to the Potomac and on to the bay but we motored on rather than sail, knowing we'd never make it if we didn't. I so wish I'd kept my own counsel and just sailed as far as we could and anchored for the night. However, getting back on Saturday, did allow me time to scrub the boat down and take care of some items to have the boat ready for the Leukemia Cup next weekend, so it wasn't all bad and the St. Marys is a beautiful River. It was a nice learing experience.

[zz4gta]

Horeshoe bend is a nice anchorage, and the friday night concert is a real treat. I opted to drive up to solomon's island and watch the fireworks from a friends boat, but spent most of the day sailing around St. Mary's and potomac rivers.

PS - I'll see you at the Leukemia cup, I'll be on an Evelyn 32-2. Jim Baldwin's boat.

[BarryL]

Hello,

It wasn't exactrly this past weekend, but my family and I sailed from our home port of Mt. Sinai NY to New York City and back.

I moved the boat to Port Washington on Saturday June 27. On Sunday my wife and kids, plus my sister and brother in law and my dad were on the boat by 8:30AM for the trip to NYC. The wind was light so we motorsailed with the main up and went under the Throggs Neck bridge, Whitestone Bridge, past Riker's Island, then into the East River and down through Hell Gate, UN building, etc.

We finally entered NY Harbor, saw the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and all the sites. Then it was up the Hudson River to the 79th st boat basin, where we stayed for a few nights. Wednesday we left and did the trip in reverse.

Then we were back on the boat Saturday night to watch fire works off Port Jeff.

Everything worked well and it was a good trip.

If anyone is interested I can provide more details.

Barry

[sailortjk1]

We had a Twohundred Mile weekend, most of it was motorsailing, but we will take it. The best sail of the weekend and the entire trip was the 3 knott average day sail on Friday. I had three little guests on board (ages 6 - 12)and they thought it was the best thing in the world.

[imagine2frolic]

I haven't been out for 7-8 months. Work just gets in the way. My brother drove down for his vacation. He ,his kids, and I went out. We let the current drift us off the dock, and motored nearly 20 miles.

As we were turning around the wind filled in, and we close hauled, and reached all the way back. The wind was just over 10knots, and we pulled a steady 6-7+ knots.

We sailed back to the pier, and dropped the sails. Paralell parked alongside my berth, and let the current do it's work for the second time of the day. I just can't wait to leave the dock, and never return... ...i2f

[imiloa]

We had some decent weather in the Chicago area for the weekend. Despite the fact that Friday was rainy and temperatures were running below normal there was sailing to be had on Lake Michigan. Saturday was a great day to practice ghosting along on flat water and sunny skies - family and friends watched suburban fireworks from the boat and had a picnic/party at the slip. Sunday afternoon was flukey with periods of great sailing in sunny 8-12 knots true and flat water to 2-3 knots of wind and a few rain showers. Overall perfect for a relaxing sail - just my wife and me.

[donhaller]

Originally Posted by midlifesailor

Winds were forecast out of the north-northwest at 10-15, so it would be a beat all the way up. Oh, yeah, we'd hit just in time for the ebb tide, so the current would be against us also.

I encountered the same trying to get back up the bay to my port in St. Leonard, MD which is about 5 nautical miles north of the LNG Platform off Cove Pt. Friday was my first sail with my new to me C&C 25; although we had a great day of sailing it became a real learning experience trying to fight our way back up the bay in the wind and current when we decided to come back to port in the afternoon.

We made it back in one piece and learned some while doing it.

[bloodhunter]

We had it all planned. We’d watch the fireworks at our marina Friday night then spend the Fourth in or around St. Michaels, then back home on Sunday. We got it about half right.
We did watch the fireworks from the flying bridge of our dock neighbor’s boat. Great evening, lots of booze and good conversation and spectacular fireworks. We had such a great time that we were a little late getting Enchantress under way , but it’s only 3-4 hours to St Michaels depending on the wind.
The wind was perfect. It seemed like the powers that be had assigned a new set of wind gods to the middle bay and they were determined to get the first day right. We left the green spider at the top of the entrance channel to Herrington South put the genoa up and the rail down and drove Enchantress for all she was worth on a close reach across the bay. Figure the winds were about 15 kts from the Northwest or thereabouts as our wind speed indicator was reading in the mid to upper 20 range and our speed over ground ( according to the GPS ) was over 11 kts.
This was the best sail I’ve had in Enchantress and one of the best sails ever. Beautiful day, sunny, not too hot. We got to R4 on the Eastern Bay where we’d turn into the Miles River and head toward St Michaels but the sailing was just too good. We turned around and headed back the way we came this time on a broad reach and by the wind speed indicator the wind might have picked up a couple of knots – or maybe not. Was having too good a time to do the math. Anyway we did the round trip from the Herrington South channel to R4 in the Eastern Bay and back again in just over 3 hours.
We were going to turn around and do it again but the wind had started to die so we headed back to our slip instead. My wife was so inspired by the day’s sailing that she fired up the propane stove and made pasta with red clam sauce, crusty garlic bread and Italian cold cuts and cheese. Served with lots of red wine and beer.
Sunday turned out to be rainy with very little wind, not a great day to be out on the bay. But Saturday, the wind gods made it all perfect, one of those days that register in your mind and stay there forever.
And a final note. When dealing with the wind gods it always helps to sacrifice a goat.