Sailing Lessons. Book Learning and the Practicum - June 14-16, 2013

Kelly IV became a floating schoolhouse for the Moraine Sailing Club (MSC) of Lake Arthur, Butler County, PA this weekend. New MSC members Bill and Sarah Paviol and Corina Campbell joined former member (me) and long-time Lake Arthur sailor, Jim Clark, for a beautiful weekend sail that included a trip to St. Michael's, Maryland.

Corina, Sarah and Bill

We departed the dock 8am on Saturday with crew and chef-extraordinaire Bill creating a grand breakfast while underway. The wind direction was from aft of the beam, so we tried sailing, but the light breeze (less than 5 knots) became even less as we demonstrated our first sailing lesson of the day: apparent wind. So the iron genny provided the driving force to our destination.

Bill, Sarah and Corina had been taking sailing lessons so they can be certified to sail the MSC community Flying Scots. Bill began working through their book as we motored through the sunny day and still waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Lesson by lesson we read questions from the book provided answers, then checked our answers with those from the book. We even broke out some spare lines and practiced our knots.

Kelly IV at anchor

By 1400 hours we lowered the anchor in a tiny cove just inside the southeast corner of the small harbor at St. Michael's. With Kelly's new all-chain rode, we felt confident she'd stay put while we played tourist in the quaint, historic town. Kelly, upped anchor to settle for the night at the roomier anchorage just outside the harbor. Kelly's neighbors in this anchorage were visited by Sarah and Corina as they took the Pudgy dinghy for a ride before sunset.

Bill enjoy's St. Michael's

This is the town that fooled the British in the War of 1812 when they raised lanterns in the trees and doused all the lights in town. The bombarding British fleet shot up the trees leaving the town relatively free from damage.

Jim, CaptMurph, Corina, Sarah, Bill

After several hours walking about town, enjoying the many homes that are well over 200 years old and ice cream that was fresh from the dairy, we dinghied back to Kelly IV.

Corina and Sarah take a cruise in the dinghy

For Father's Day, Sarah cooked a terrific breakfast. It was a wonderful Father's Day treat!

By 9am Kelly and crew were off the anchor and raising sails immediately to enjoy the day's breeze. This time the southwest wind was substantially stronger (about 12 knots) so even with the breeze aft of the beam, Kelly was sailing along in a wonderfully capable apparent wind. Given the breeze, Sunday was declared the Practicum to Saturday's book lessons. With several course changes and adjusting sail trim required to dodge the shoals in the Miles River and six tacks necessary to traverse Eastern Bay and clear Bloody Point, Kelly's capable crew demonstrated that their book learning had produced excellent results.

With Bloody Point aft of the beam, the wind also fell behind us so we were on a broad reach for the balance of the return to Annapolis. The only “adventure” this weekend was when we cut across one of the Sunday afternoon race courses at the mouth of the Severn River. No one had to adjust their course, but we crossed two of the racers paths, one across their bow, the other behind their stern, within about 100 feet of each vessel.

Sailing an uneventful weekend depends a lot on having a great crew with experience. Even though the Paviol's are taking lessons, the fact is that they have been active sailors on Kelly IV and several other sailboats for many years now. It showed as each tack and sail change was handled smoothly and shifting anchor locations was merely routine. This is a crew that always has fun and are fun to be with.

Anchoring Challenge - June 1 – 2, 2013

Galesville, then to Annapolis

Another day in paradise as I glanced around the quiet anchorage in Galesville taking in the morning sunshine and relaxing with the soothing sounds of water lapping at Kelly IV's hull while the building breeze was rustling the burgees flying off the starboard spreader.  The large motor yacht off our starboard quarter was lying there just as it had all night.  So when I glance their direction a few minutes later and they're gone, it takes me by surprise.  Suddenly I realize that they are banging against the side of  a sailboat just a couple hundred feet aft of Kelly.

It is crazy to experience two anchoring adventures just a few days apart (our collision in Solomons happened while we were at anchor), but there it was right in front of me.  One minute the power yacht was lying quietly to her anchor which served her fine all night long, the next she was no longer under control and her hull was beating against the sailboat.  Fortunately, they sorted it out and in another few minutes the two skippers were exchanging information and the motor cruiser was on her way.  The wild part of all this is that, at its strongest, the breeze was still less than 10 knots.  I have to believe that something went wrong while they were raising their anchor, rather than their anchor dragging (which is a common culprit in these events).

The prior day started easy as the sail to Galesville was about 32 nm and didn't require an oh-dark-thirty departure to get there in daylight.   Our experienced crew guided Kelly back through the winding navigation aids and past the threatening shoals without a hitch.  The breeze was the best we'd seen so far this week, so once in the open water of the Choptank River we set sail.  Those who understand Murphy's Law will not be surprised to learn that Kelly faced the “Sailing Corollary to Murphy's Law:  whenever a nice sailing breeze pipes up, it will be on the nose.”

Jack and Bob sailing Kelly IV

No worries, with Jack at the helm and Bob on the sheets, they tweaked and adjusted to point as close to the wind as possible and after only two tacks we cleared the south end of Tilghman Island.  This route did take us several miles further than going through Knapp's Narrows.  A local captain advised us only a week earlier that there was significant shoaling in the Narrows and it would be easy to get stuck.  His advise was to go through at mid-tide on the flood so we'd get relatively deep water and, if grounded, we'd soon float off as the tide continued to rise.  Our schedule would have placed us into the Narrows at the peak of high tide which means that if we ran aground we'd be more than 12 hours waiting for the next tide to float us off.  It seemed prudent to just take an hour extra to sail around the extra distance and avoid the potential problem altogether.

It was a beautiful day, yet our breeze was beginning to wane.  And, wouldn't you know it, our course turned us downwind so what little breeze there was just wasn't enough to keep us moving.  We did spend a half hour struggling to set the drifter and merely drifted close to the fishing weirs.  That convinced us to stow the sails, fire the iron genny and proceed across the bay to the West River where we'd anchor off the small town of Galesville.

The quiet evening at anchor was followed by a good night's sleep then the brief excitement of the collision described earlier.

Thomas Point Lighthouse

On Sunday, June 2, the building breeze continued and was both strong enough and aft of the beam so Kelly IV sailed away immediately after raising her anchor.  A few gybes brought us to the mouth of the West River, then we sailed on a comfortable broad reach until we cleared  the Thomas Point Lighthouse.  At that point we set the whisker pole on the jib and sailed wing-and-wing for over an hour until past Tolly Point.

Approaching Annapolis under sail

After “turning the corner” the pole was stowed, the jib gybed and we sailed into Annapolis on what proved to be the best breeze we enjoyed all week long.  It was an excellent way to wrap up a terrific week visiting a new anchorage at every port of call and sailing with great friends.