Ahhh....shorts.

By Sailor Keddy -
I would say, that a more appropriate title to this blog would have been "I HATE PANTS", however, that probably would have placed it in an inappropriate category. Googling I HATE PANTS would have resulted in links that this blog does not belong with. We came into Norfolk yesterday, after nearly 40 hours of travel on Winchelsea. Her engine, I have to say, has been an absolute champ. We ran her for a total of 17 hours on our trip from Cape May. The first instance was leaving the harbor and putting the sails up. After sailing close hauled over flat seas for six or so hours, they started to build and the wind shifted to a direction that was exactly where we were looking to head. Not to tempt fate again by beating into a 20-25 knot headwind in 4-6 foot seas (remember what got us to Fire Island...), I decided to turn on the engine and motor. We only made about 4 knots, but Winchelsea had a grand time going up and down the waves. I checked the weather and the wind was supposed to calm and shit around midnight, which it did. It then died completely.

Now, since I had a massive hole in my exhaust, it was impossible to sleep in the cabin while the engine was running for fear of affixation. Even though there was next to no wind, we decided to keep the engine off and get some sleep even though we weren't really making much headway. It was a beautiful night though, the moon set around 4 am leaving only the stars out. There was not even another ship in sight, only radio towers sloftly blinking on shore in the distance to starboard. During my 4 -5 am shift, I turned out the bright stern light and enjoyed the view above me, and the bioluminescence Winchelsea made as she drifted slowly through the night under a full main and jib just barely filled. I even was able to set the sails correctly and put on the wheel brake, thus allowing her to sail herself, balanced perfectly between the two sails and the slightly offset rudder. I laid back and put my feet up...this is what I had been searching for.




The sun rose just after 7 and by 8 we were motoring again, following the rhumb line to the mouth of the Chesapeake. Motoring in was uneventful, outside of the bottlenose dolphins and pelicans we saw! Ah...truly back in the south. It was a wonderful 75 degrees with sunshine and a huge blue dome overhead. Around noon, I changed into shorts. I don't know if you remember, but last year in the week preceeding my birthday, I was driving through Connecticut back to Boston and it actually srtared snowing. This week in 2010 could not be more different :)

Comments

Anonymous said…
Sounds idyllic!
October 20, 2010 at 9:18 AM
Bill said…
Glad to hear you are that far south already! Enjoy!
October 22, 2010 at 8:23 PM
Unknown said…
I hope you meant the wind was going to "shift" and not "shit" because that would really suck...
October 25, 2010 at 10:42 AM
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