07052011.2000
We were planning for a 0630 start but once again we were a half hour late starting. I’ll take it! Once again as we left St. Michaels Harbor we could tell it was going to be another motor/sail trip. Winds were out of the north at 5 knots and unless we wanted to arrive in Solomons after dark we had to depend on the iron horse to get us there before night fall. AS we entered the Chesapeake Bay from Eastern Bay we made our turn to port and Midnight Breeze was further south than she ever has been. I still had the fuel gauge on my mind and as Mary pointed out I wasn’t going to be able to relax until I had some answers. For the last three days I have been thinking about the situation and finally have come up with a temporary solution. I know that we topped off the tank in St. Michaels, that should give us 56 gallons of fuel. So all I needed was information on how much fuel the Yanmar 54 Horsepower will burn at our cruising rpm’s of 1800. So at 0900 I called the service department and talked with our representative Chris. He advised that he was going to call Yanmar and get the information I requested and he reassured us that we would have enough fuel to make this trip twice over. An hour later Chris called back and advised that at 1800 rpm’s I would burn around ¾ of a gallon/hr at 7.5 hours that put us at just under 7.5 gallons minus 56, sweet! I estimated our arrival time around 1400 hours since we are motor sailing at 6.5 knots/hour. Chris also emailed me the rpm specs from the factory for back up. Now I could relax. About two hours later I received another call from Annapolis Yacht Center’s head of warranty repair “Fred”. He had me go down below and pull the panel on the instrument display and get the color of the sticker on the panel circuit board. He was going to order a new panel circuit board and a new fuel tank sending unit and have it installed when we get back. I can’t remember the last time I had service like this. Great Job Annapolis Yacht Sales and a thank you to both Chris and Fred. Since this was going to be a long trip and mostly a straight shot without many adjustments to our course I started showing Mary how to read charts. I got our binoculars and started pointing to different areas on the chart and had her find them on land. The Calvert Cliffs, Nuclear Power Plant, and the LPG loading platforms. It was a good lesson for both of us. From that day forward she didn’t put the chart book down. She was pointing out everything to me! I created a monster, but a good monster at that. We both learned a lot this trip, both about ourselves and how well we work together. I want Mary, no let me correct that, I need Mary to be able to handle Midnight Breeze if something were to happen to me and she is a willing learner. We pulled into Solomons Island around 1430 hours a half hour behind schedule (why is it always a half hour?). We originally were going to anchor but then decided to make reservations at the Calvert Marina since we were going to be here for three days. Forty three bucks a night, not bad! It was a dollar a foot with our Boat US membership. As soon as we were tied we hit the pool! What a trip!
Dave