Century Club: George Hernandez

A light east wind along with an incoming tidal current and the best I could do was mostly go back and forth across the channel early on. This was fine with me and then I was rewarded with another Nonsuch returning to Hampton. Turning my attention to Art in his Nonsuch 26, I plotted an intercept course to say hello and take a few pictures.

The winds began to shift NE making it much easier to recover from my downwind distraction and make it into the north channel for Willoughby Bay. Dropping anchor at the east end, I did a little work on the boat and fished ahead of dinner catching 6 Croaker. It was their lucky day as I already had burgers for the grill.

A couple days before I was at First Landing SP and met a guy with a sailboat in the parking lot. He had the mast up but doing that had taken longer than expected and the days heat was getting to him. Since getting late in the afternoon he decided to call it a day. I helped lower the mast and offered to come out later in the week to help launch and recover. 

On friday morning we got the mast up and launched into Braod Bay. After checking no water coming into the boat and with very light winds we just motored around as he calibrated instruments, happy to finally have his boat in the water.

One of my favorite places to go for an overnight. An easy sail of a little over 10 miles. A fairly peaceful spot with occasional activity from nearby Langley.

Looking at the extended forecast, in spite of the heat and scattered thunderstorms, I decided Friday to Saturday was the best. By early evening an area of convective activity was building just west of Suffolk about 25 miles to the SW. It was moving NE and continuing to develop. Then a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for Hampton and surrounding areas. 

I let out more anchor line maybe 12:1 scope and had everything secure as I watched the storm approach. Fortunately the worst passed just to the south. The heavier rain and lightning passed just to the south and moved out over the bay. Only light rainshower on my but it did get windy with Langley reporting 45 knots. Anchor held fine and the showers cooled things off, a little. RH stayed at 85% most of the night and in spite of a nice breeze it was a little uncomfortable through the night. 

Even with one reef in, the east wind had me flying downwind out of Willoughby Bay past Swells Point at 7+ knots. Turning NE towards home the winds died significantly. Tacking upwind was a chore against an incoming tide. What otherwide would have been a few tacks, became many. I was determined not to start the diesel.