The Marvelous DelMarva
There is an outfit called the World Cruising Club. They organize and manage several coordinated
sailing events under the umbrella of the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC)
which was originally established to put cruising or racing boats in an
organized fleet to more safely make the 2,700 mile ocean crossing from the
Canary Islands to the Caribbean. It caught on, and more ARC Rallies were
created, now even including a world ARC circumnavigation rally. The organizers collect fees for your
participation and in return you are provided with lectures, books and video
materials, safety inspections, discounted docking, some free meals and parties
at stops along the way. Most of all you are included in a network of like-minded
and similarly destined sailors, many of whom use a rally to accomplish their
first ‘big’ sail.
We did just such a thing in early June 2014. Our ‘new to us’ sailboat is a complex affair
and we hoped to use a rally opportunity to shake out the boat, learn how to
manage systems and crew schedules and put together a list of things that needed
to be done before attempting an even bigger event this coming November; a
non-stop sail from the mouth of the Chesapeake to the British Virgin Islands.
The particular June rally that we joined is named the ARCDelMarVa because it goes around the peninsula between the Chesapeake Bay and
the Delaware Bay, encompassing the states of Delaware, Maryland and
Virginia. The trip is around 450
nautical miles (if sailed in straight lines) and is scheduled to take a week including stopovers along the way. The
plan is to leave Annapolis on a Sunday morning and be back for the closing
dinner the following Saturday.
Robin and I had originally set our sights (and paid the
entry fee) on the bigger rally in November called the Caribbean 1500. It has a 25 year history of successful ocean
crossings leaving from Hampton (this year Portsmouth), VA and ending up in
Tortola, BVI. The trip is about 1,400 nm in a straight line (which is really a
curved line as far as navigation is concerned) and takes around 10 to 12-ish days
depending on boat and weather conditions. The
route crosses the Gulf Stream and goes well off shore (maybe 400 miles offshore!) into the deeper parts of
the Atlantic.
All boats have to be inspected, carry all kinds of safety and
communications gear and there are tracking devices on each boat for progressand position reporting. There are scheduled radio net check-ins and custom
weather reporting services provided for entrants. Of course, you can read all about it here J
When Robin and I decided firmly that this is what we would
like to do (it only makes sense to cut your trans-Atlantic teeth within an
organized group) we signed up and attended our first Atlantic sailing
seminar. While we were there, the idea
of also doing the DelMarVa Rally popped up and we decided to go for it as
well. One can never have too much
experience on the water and this looked to be a great opportunity to get things
together before the bigger step in November. So … we pulled the trigger and
signed up.
Now, all of a sudden, we were
in a hurry to get ready. It’s amazing
when you think you have seven months to prepare, and suddenly that whittles
down to just a few weeks. But we took the prepared checklists and went
shopping, started studying up on what would be required for the route and made
our reservations at the interim marinas.
All in all, it was a great thing to come under a little pressure as we
moved on things we might’ve waited on until the last minute otherwise.
On the day that we brought the last few piece of safety gear
aboard, we had a surprise visit from the Annapolis Power Squadron, a division
of the Coast Guard Auxiliary. The team
was out doing inspections on boats and we actually passed, with just a couple
of small ‘to-do” items to accomplish to make it a perfect inspection. Who
knew?? I need to sincerely thank the
folks at World Cruising for putting together the checklists. It is directly due
to them that we were accomplishing all the compliance items and it was
certainly a pleasure to receive a ‘pass’ from the Coast Guard and get our
little orange triangle sticker. We are almost fully compliant with the rally
guidelines (we still have to either service or replace our life raft) so it is
now a matter of making sure we know where everything is stored and how to use it.
OK, so about this DelMarVa Rally thing.
It came to pass that our dear friend Erle
could join us for the entire voyage so we were glad to have him come out.
We were also notified that Lauren Saalmuller from Sail Magazine wanted to join us for the first leg.
That was way cool! .. and a bit spooky … I
mean, the Assistant Editor for a major sailing publication wants to come aboard
and crew with a couple of inexperienced sailors on a new boat? What could possibly go wrong?? But, we were
glad to have her aboard and she turned out to be a wonderful crew member and
lots of fun to visit with. Can’t wait to
see how the article reads! (Look for it in August, I’d guess).
It came to pass that our dear friend Erle
could join us for the entire voyage so we were glad to have him come out.We were also notified that Lauren Saalmuller from Sail Magazine wanted to join us for the first leg.
That was way cool! .. and a bit spooky … I
mean, the Assistant Editor for a major sailing publication wants to come aboard
and crew with a couple of inexperienced sailors on a new boat? What could possibly go wrong?? But, we were
glad to have her aboard and she turned out to be a wonderful crew member and
lots of fun to visit with. Can’t wait to
see how the article reads! (Look for it in August, I’d guess).
The day before the rally start (6/7/14) we re-positioned the
boat from our slip in Deale, MD to a slip in Annapolis. It was a nice journey
up, but the wind was right on our nose so we had to use the motor for the whole
3 hour run. Coming into the Annapolis Harbor area, I misguided us ever so
slightly and we turned up the wrong creek (Spa Creek instead of Back Creek) but
it was a fun little tour of the area .. and no one else knew I didn't mean to
do that until we started heading back out.
For fun though, just as we started back outbound a small … I mean like
16 feet ... sailboat tacked and came about directly in front of us. Now, we
were motoring, so by rights the little boat had right-of-way since they were
sailing, but I don’t know how brave I would be to claim that right when a boat
that could slice me in half was bearing down on me in close quarters. We had no room to maneuver at all and so I
basically had to slam on the brakes as they sailed by us a few feet off the
bow. The best part was the lady at the helm who, looking up at us in a boat
more than three times her size, simply shrugged her shoulders as she glided by.
Well, I guess it’s like walking blindly out into a crosswalk and just assuming
the drivers will stop. Works until it
doesn't. The memory of the shrugging lady will stay with us for a while. What
was she thinking??
We found our way to our assigned slip at Annapolis LandingMarina and began making final preparations for the Sunday morning start. There
were things to stow, groceries to buy, water and fuel to fill and checklists to
run through. I changed the engine oil and got things ready to go. We all attended the pre-rally function in
town and got to meet several other sailors who were doing this rally for
reasons similar to our own. We are new at it and wanted to try within the
safety net of an organized event. There
were a lot of first-timers at the briefing and it validated our decision to do
the rally.
The crew was all briefed and ready, the boat was ready and
we left the fuel dock 45 minutes prior to the start of the rally. Should’ve
worked like a champ, except we didn't really understand where the starting line
was J. No matter, we just motored out to join them
as the fleet, in all their full-sail-pennant-flying glory crossed the starting
line and the Rally was officially underway.
There were photo-op boats circling around and it all ended up working out
just fine. No one except you and I know
that the #5 marker we were waiting at and the #5 marker everybody else was
waiting at are ½ mile apart. All those pretty boats with all the sails up were a
dead give-away that we hadn't quite hit the starting line spot on.
In reality, we were quite content to not be in the thick of
it mixing it up at the starting line.
It’s a rally, not a race (remember that…) so the actually start is more
of a formality.
We crossed the start line in great fashion, appearing for all the world to know exactly what we were doing and we headed out into the Chesapeake Bay.
We crossed the start line in great fashion, appearing for all the world to know exactly what we were doing and we headed out into the Chesapeake Bay.
A couple of things became readily apparent as soon as we
cleared the harbor’s waters and entered into the bay. First; the forecast for 5 to 9 knots of wind
was woefully wrong. We were looking at
12 – 15 knots and, miraculously, it was right on the nose (again) if we wanted
to go south (sigh). Second; all those pretty pennants and flags that Erle had
spent so much time hoisting were not going to last long in a stronger wind, so
down they came. Third; we’d not really
tacked the boat before so it was going to be a fun exercise in bringing the
boat around, back and forth, all the way down the bay. Fourth; … this was way
cool fun stuff that we’d been dreaming about for years!
Our first tacking exercise went relatively well, and with
each successive tack we got better at not having the sail or lines snag as they
passed through from one side to the other.
We took long tacking legs; from one side of the bay to the other and the
boat made good speed into the wind … but not such good speed toward our target.
This is the way of things when sailing and would not be so much of a worry out
in the open ocean, but we had two limits on us: the width of the bay and the
appointment in Portsmouth for dinner the next night. Still, we tacked on and surprisingly passed
within a few boat lengths of another rally participant going the opposite tack
on not less than three occasions. Fun to know that we were all pretty much
making the same amount of slow forward progress.
Well, after sailing about seventy miles through the water
we’d only made about 21 miles “upstream” into the wind (that’s sailing in a
nutshell some days). It was beginning to get dark and we decided to not tack
all night long, crossing back and forth over the shipping channel and through
unfamiliar waters with an inexperienced crew.
Good call, I’d say. So…after about 10 hours of tacking we rolled in the
sails and turned on the motor. Now we
were making 7 knots directly toward our destination and the crew could start
taking shifts (watches) navigating us toward Portsmouth.
The wind increased, the waves built and except for it not being
bitter cold, it really resembled the delivery run back in March where we
pounded up the Delaware Bay in a gale.
Winds increased to 20 knots with some gusts
to 25 but the boat had no trouble making way although we slowed to 2-3 knots at
times. We got ~some~ rest and during the night we heard about other rally boats
that had headed to shore to find a rest stop for the night. We also heard that
one boat had engine trouble and another had a sail problem forcing them to drop
out. We pressed on till daylight, hanging close to, but not in, the shipping
channel and spotting the occasional cargo ship along the way. Those things are
absolutely huge!
Each crew member took a three hour watch through the
night. We spent some time doubled up
when passing through the busy entrances to the Patuxent and Potomac
rivers. For the most part, motoring
along meant checking your position against the plotted course and trying to see
out into the dark through the wave-splashed windshield. Except for the wind and pounding waves (not
big waves, just ones that made you lift up a bit, then slam into the next one)
the trip was uneventful and daybreak brought a little relief from the wind; not
in direction, but in speed. We still had
to motor into it.
A great treat was had when we passed several “Tall Ships” heading north on the bay the next morning (Monday 6/9).
There had been a festival of some sort in the Norfolk area and a
collection of these majestic wooden schooners were now proceeding back to their
respective home ports. Since we were just motoring along, we varied off course
a bit to go see them as closely as we could without being a nuisance. We got to
exchange waves with a few crew members and took a lot of pictures. It was very
cool to see these replicas moving slowly northward, using the wind that we had
been fighting all night.
We rounded the lighthouse and went into the Norfolk Harbor.
There is a huge Naval installation there and our crew member Erle, an avid Navy
man, was in his element looking at, and looking up, (we had cell coverage so
Google was the name of the game) all the different types of ships and hardware
that were station just a few boat lengths away. Of course, the security boats
made certain that no tourists got too close; something we did not care to test.
Motoring south on the Elizabeth River we arrived at Ocean
Marine Yacht Club in Portsmouth, VA well before dark. After taking on fuel and water
and we wandered the streets of Portsmouth looking for food at just a few
minutes after 9 P.M. … a few minutes after a lot of places had closed. We did find a nice spot and had a great
dinner time of de-briefing and visiting about what we saw and did. All told,
leg one was very successful even if the winds and water were against us.
We spent the next day (Tuesday 6/10) waiting for other boats
to arrive before having a crew briefing.
Then we went for a big group dinner … at the same spot we’d found the
night before! Wouldn't you know it? Nevertheless it was a great time socializing
and we met new friends from another rally boat and it was great to be a part of
the ‘society’ of cruisers for a while.
This day, 6/10/14 also marked our 8th
Anniversary. It was impossible to squeeze out any private time, but it was
still a very special day. I am so truly blessed to be married to Robin. She is
just amazing. The very fact that we are having an anniversary aboard our
cruising boat is a testimony to the support and encouragement that she has
given me. I could not have done this without her. So there!!
Wednesday we departed at 8 A.M. for the second leg of the
rally. This would be the one that took us off shore and into the Atlantic as we
sailed from Portsmouth, VA to Cape May, NJ. The trip was noteworthy for two
reasons: 1> somehow the winds that
had been out of the south for 2 days on the Chesapeake were now out of the
north on the ocean. Really? And 2> they weren’t strong enough to dissipate
the fog. Ah well, here we go again. Turn
the motor on and settle into the humming routine of 5 kt motor-boating. . Follow the plotted line and we will see how
it all comes together on the other end. Boring?
Well, yes and no. You still have
keep a close watch; there are 20 other boats out there in the fog doing the
same thing. We talked about trying to
make the wind work for us; sailing far offshore and then using the wind to
bring us back in, but we were only three on crew now as Lauren (the editor from
Sail Magazine) had moved to another boat for the second leg. Shorthanded sail
management wasn’t something I was really up for so we just set the throttle at
2,000 RPM and let the little Volvo TMD-22 motor purr along for most of the day and
all night. We had some pretty cool ‘sightings’ in the fog when a ghostly
sailboat would materialize out of the fog and keep pace with us for a while. Not
quite the Black Pearl, but nonetheless a pretty ethereal event.
The entrance to the marine in Cape May, NJ show a good water
depth except right at the marina
entrance. It is charted at four feet and we need seven feet to be comfortable
in not scraping the bottom. Fortunately
for us, there is a (nearly) five foot tidal range at that location so it just
means we are ‘slaves to the tide’ as we must enter and exit the marina only at
or near high tide. Luckily for us (I
would claim fastidious planning, but any sailor knows better than that…) we
would indeed arrive around 8 A.M. which was very close to high tide. We slid into the marina and found a spot to
tie up right at the fuel dock, which was convenient as the boat was a bit
thirsty J
The last part of this leg proved
to be challenging and not without incident.
As we approached the opening to the Delaware Bay, we had to cross 4
major shipping lanes (2 in each incoming and outgoing directions). I was below, sort of snoozing, when I heard
the engine RPM drop to idle. Well, that’s
something that’ll get your curiosity high pretty quickly. Actually, Erle had
reduced our speed to near zero in order to allow a huge RADAR blip to pass in
front of us. The fog, you see, had never
lifted and in fact was very thick through this area so having the RADAR to
avoid big ships was critical. We had
been motor-sailing, just to (maybe) gain a half a knot of additional speed but
decided to roll the sails in and finish the last few miles just under
motor. Then ... it happened. Somehow, while rolling up the jib sail, a
line got tangled up in the mechanism at the top of the sail, right where it
attaches to the main mast. We could not see it happen and didn’t notice
anything wrong except the winding motor labored a bit. I thought we had a sheet
(a line that attaches to the bottom of
the sail that was dragging, so we unwound it a bit, made sure the bottom lines
were clear and began winding it again.
There was a ‘crack’ sound and two long lengths of line tumbled onto the
deck from above. Both the jib and spinnaker halyards had gotten wrapped up in
the furler and snapped, along with a third halyard used for supporting the
spinnaker pole. These two big halyards are rated at (at least) 7,000 pounds of
braking strength, and the smaller one maybe half that. The furling motor
snapped them and we didn’t even really feel it labor to do so. Now that is some
serious power in a 24v electric motor.
Nonetheless, we took some damage aloft, and a section of our life-line
railing on the deck was bent upwards at the point a 5/8" halyard was tied down.
We were
done using that sail, or any sail for that matter, until we could get a
complete inspection and assessment of the damage. One thing NOT to do is risk
bringing down the whole sail rig by putting it under a big load after an incident.
We would have to motor-boat the rest of the trip home.
The morning at the marina, Andy
Schell (the event organizer) offered to go aloft and take a look at the
rig. His inspection revealed very little
damage, but with broken halyards there was nothing to hold the sails up is we
unfurled them so it confirmed our motor-boat status. The group put on a pot luck and we spent a
pretty comfortable night at the fuel dock.
Thus begins leg 3.
On the morning of the 13th
(Friday, no less) we set out into the Delaware Bay for the last leg of the
trip. The water in the channel and out in the mouth of the Bay was glassy
smooth, and although not as thick as the previous time it was still
hazy/foggy. We left at high tide and had
no problems exiting the marina or channel.
Looking at our RADAR, it appeared
that the storms would head right at us, lightning and thundering along the way,
but either dissipate into rain showers or pass in front or behind us. The line was clearly defined and once it had
passed there was clear air behind it. We
got some winds and got rained on, but we never encountered any ‘rough’
conditions. Fortunate for us J
At around dusk we entered the
C&D Canal. A 14+ mile cut between the (C)heasapeake and (D)elaware
Bays. The weather had cleared and we were treated to a wonderfully smooth ride
through the canal. It was decided that we would keep two crew on deck; one to
steer and navigate and one on watch for traffic and hazards. This meant 6
hours-on, three hours off; a pretty brutal schedule.Fortunately it would not be for a long time (only during the dark hours), but it was still a tough watch schedule. I, however, am so very glad that we exercised that option.
The Canal, while nicely marked and well lit, is still a very dangerous place because of the large shipping traffic. During these watches, we came very close to very large ships a couple of times. Having someone on the spotlight and on the radio was critical to finding and avoiding these guys; they use most of the channel. We motored through the Canal, out into the channel entrance to the Chesapeake and cleared the Bay Bridge all the while trying to spot and identify each and every marker and range light. It was still quite dark at 0430 when we arrived at the shipping anchorage area near the Annapolis Harbor entrance. I opted to slow down and travel outside the harbor until we at least had some kind of daylight to work with. By 0545 we were headed into the harbor and shortly thereafter docked up on the Annapolis Landing Marina fuel dock (which we’d been kicked off of nearly a week earlier).
I was told at the skippers' briefing prior to the beginning of this rally that it has been called one of three things ... the "Del-Marvelous", the "Hell-Marva", or the "Del-Motor". I guess we got the latter of the three. 70+ hours of engine time. Nonetheless, it was a worthwhile, interesting, educating, networking and FUN time.
Mission accomplished … Nap time!
Mission accomplished … Nap time!
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