Century Club: Richard Eggert

We had 3 boats and ran 5 or 6 L2s in front of DSC/Harbor East. Kelly C and I won all the races. Afterwards, we sailed out to the Canton Waterfront and back.

The forecast for the rest of the month was in the 20s and 30s, but weirdly Thursday was forecast to be around 50, with winds at 5-10 knots, so I put out a call for crew on the DSC forums, arranged to leave work early, and reserved a J/22.

By the time Thursday arrived, the forecast had increased to 10-15 knots gusting to 25, with a Small Craft Advisory in effect until 4. Zack and Karen arrived shortly before I did and had the boat mostly rigged by the time I got down to the dock. I set up my GoPro, then we raiised and reefed the mainsail. I took the helm and we departed by backing off the dock, then we raised the jib and headed out.

The wind was still rather gusty early on, and we got up to around 7.2 knots a few times on the way out past Fort McHenry. There was one other sailboat, a small cruiser, sailing behind us, but otherwise the harbor was empty aside from an occasional tugboat moving around. After a little more than a half hour, I handed the helm over to Zack, who took us out to the Key Bridge on a broad reach, arriving at just about an hour into our sail. We then hove-to so I could swap out the GoPro battery. Karen took over the helm, and we started on our way back.

The return trip took a bit longer, since we were heading upwind most of the way back to Fort McHenry. Karen handed the helm back over to me about 2/3 of the way back to the Fort, and I took us through the channel. As we got back to Northwest Harbor, the wind became shifty and gusty, which resulted in some fun sailing. 

The GoPro battery died as we were passing the Domino Sugar refinery, so we were unable to record footage of our docking. There was a pretty substantial crosswind blowing into the dock, so we dropped the mainsail next to the dock and did a 360 into our parking spot.

Kelly, Michelle, and I headed out in a J/22 in 95-degree heat shortly after noon. As we passed the Domino Sugar refinery, the already light wind died altogether, leaving us floating along at approximately one knot in the searing heat. As we gradually made our way past Fell's Point, the wind gradually picked up, and by the time we reached Canton we were moving along at a decent pace, albeit still someone slowly. 

The wind continued to increase as we approached Fort McHenry, and I handed the helm over to Kelly. By the time we reached the fort, we had a steady 10 knots of wind and had cooled down considerably. The Sonar skippered by Alan managed to scoot ahead of us as we tacked our way in the general direction of the Key Brdige. By this point, conditions were quite pleasant, with excellent wind and temperatures below 90.

Around 2pm, we turned downwind, back toward the Fort, and Michelle took over on helm. I tutored her on holding our course steady and occasionally jibing, though as we approached the fort, she lost confidence and had me take over on the helm through the Fort McHenry channel. 

As we approached Canton, I gave the helm back over to Kelly, and we performed a couple Quick Stop POB drills. Afterwards, Michelle took over on helm again to make our way back through Northwest Harbor. Approaching the Inner Harbor, we encountered a lot of traffic, so I took over to navigate through it, then performed a POB drill myself before handing the helm back over to Kelly for one last POB drill and docking.

I volunteered to skipper a boat for a sailing event for children in the foster care system being advocated for by CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates). Kelly was my volunteer crew. We were paired with a middle-school-aged boy, Q, and his CASA chaperone, J. Q was fairly quiet but very responsive and enthusiastic, asking many questions. We had partially rigged the (J/22) boat before they arrived, but I had Q help us finish rigging the boat, and included a quick overview of the parts of the boat in the process. I handled the helm during departure, had Q raise the jib, and demonstrated tacking and jibing, and Kelly gave Q a lesson in trimming the jib. Afterwards, I handed the helm over to Q and guided him through the manuevers. We managed to go out further than any of the other boats, making it it halfway between Canton and Fort McHenry before we needed to turn around in order to get back by our scheduled docking time. The wind in the Fort McHenry channel died shortly after we turned around, which put our return at risk, but picked up again as we approached Fell's Point. As we approached the docks, we lowered the jib, then I took over the helm for the docking. Q took care of dropping the mainsail, while Kelly handled stepping off and securing the boat to the dock.

We left the boat rigged, since I had it reserved for the afternoon. After lunch, I met up with Asher and his wife, Sophia, and we headed out. By this time, the wind had picked up considerably, and we made it through the Northwest Harbor and the Fort McHenry channel at a pretty steady 5 knots. Once we reached the Fort, I handed the helm over to Asher, who manned it for the rest of the trip, while his wife managed the traveler and I trimmed the jib. We tacked upwind to the Key Bridge at around 5.5 knots, first making a stop at the star-spangled Key Memorial Buoy, then, after a short detour due to Fort Carrol blocking our wind, looped around the bridge supports. We headed back downwind toward Fort McHenry, then back through the Fort McHenry channel toward Canton and then Northwest Harbor. We dropped the jib, then I guided Asher through the process of a crosswind docking in our slip. We completed the trip in just about 3 1/2 hours.

The weather was quite hot, around 90F, but the increased wind in the afternoon kept it from becoming unbearable.