Century Club: Tim Ford

Beautiful night on the river and, in a totally unexpected fashion, the breeze built all evening from the predicted 5 kn to 12-14 gusting 18.  Of course one of those gusts just happened to hit as we were headed upwind approaching a symm-sailed boat that was struggling with the gusty conditions sailing downwind. 

As we approached we got hit with the larger puff and started to round-up into the path of the other boat. Our boat was on its ear.  This was just at the time I needed to completely blow the mainsheet, but I was struggling to remain in the cockpit and it took me a while to get my foot under the cleat to kick the sheet free. I mean it was close. Finally kicked the sheet free and that gave us enough steerage to avoid the other boat. By seconds.

I mean...it was close.

In crossing situations upwind, I always have the sheet looped over my leg that's most forward, as I am constantly playing the traveler with my other hand. Anticipating a close crossing and the possible need to dump the main to duck our competitor, I am usually very much prepared in these upwind situations.  But I didn't recognize the threat in this situation.

Lesson learned: an emergency dump is very much possible with DW boats approaching in big breeze.  I should have been more alert and thank god we didn't hit as it could have been very ugly.

Left the Stono River, east of Charleston, to go up the ICW and the Chesapeake for approx 600 miles, delivering a Catalina 36 mkII back to her mooring at PSA.  The ICW offers about everything, from nutzo, rowdy, crowded speed lanes for overpowered center consoles to some of the most remote waterfront I’ve ever seen on the east coast, including Maine. 

In one long day between Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, we saw three boats. Three.  In over 60 miles of water travel. There were some long stretches without cell phone connectivity, which was nice.

The Chesapeake served up some excitement from Norfolk to Deltaville as the predicted 10-15 built to 20-25 gusting 30.  And there were numerous stops for malfunctioning aspects of propulsion. It was a grind, but I would not have missed it for the world. 

Couple things I learned today:

- the biggest influence on successful fishing is the tide, at least on Blackhole Creek.  If it's falling, don't expect much, even though there were vast schools of baitfish in the creek.

- not being able to use the boat for a month (due to vast family priorities) may mean some unwanted creatures might move in during the absence.  In this case it was wasps. My boat, on a mooring, is at least 80 yards from shore.  Why wasps think building a nest out on a boat that far from shore is a good idea, I'll never know.  In any case, a hasty retreat was nec.

On the pointy end this week which I am probably a bit too old for, but did an OK job.  A little too slow on the getting the foot in from the blown tack line, which is one of my major complaints about an assym douse. But stil we did OK.

Smoke was starting to make its way into the atmosphere.