Kaimusailing

It was calm with a slight East wind and light rain. I was waiting to sail out of the Bodkin Inlet. East wind wouldn't do, almost any other direction might. Preparations to get underway included packing the Serotta bicycle, Honda generator, two window sill planters full of basil and oregano, putting tools away from the Atomic Four repair, row the anchor out into the channel to kedge out when the wind is right, organize below decks so that sailing on edge won't create chaos, stow, pack, bring the dinghy on board, and just wait for the wind to change.
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Now it is evening and almost all that has been done. Bike still needs to be stowed below. I began listening to the VHF, scanning, there is an alert about a large tree in the water, but I will not be on that side of the Bay. On our last trip down to Crisfield I noticed an Eastern channel under the Bay Bridge. SUNSPLASH's mast will fit under that span. Since I am going Eastern Shore I might as well cross the Bay up here, then follow the red channel markers down to Hooper's Island channel. I've never been able to sail into Crisfield, but now it is a must.
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High tide is at 7am and the wind is forecast to be SSE at around that time. I will kedge out of the slip, bend on sails, bring the anchor aboard, and sail East up the inlet to its dogleg which points North. If I don't get the right wind, I will stay put. Out on the Bay the wind will be from SSE or S and I will be on stbd tack toward Kent Island, through the bridge, maybe have to tack down the Bay. The wind is forecast to go SW which should make most of my route a reach. I entered the whole thing in OpenCPN with a VMG of 4 knots, which we should be able to do, at least, and the route came back as 22 1/2 hours. Will I sail all night?
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As it turned out the wind did fill in, a very light southerly, and I sailed out of the Bodkin using the mainsail only. When I got out into the Bay, after considerable time ghosting out the Bodkin, I began bending on the genoa and had to set it up 3 times. It is a large sail and getting the corners sorted out without fouling the genoa sheets took 3 tries. It was difficult to raise the sail, as always, it is a roller furling sail but the roller furler has been broken for many years.
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I began tacking South into the light breeze and found it was too light to overcome the tide current at the Bay Bridge. It didn't help that the boat is obviously heavily fouled on the bottom. Our best speed was 3 1/2 knots. After several tacks under the span of the bridge, I finally got through. I began tacking down the Bay. The same current was at its height and the boat also was giving up too much leeway due to the bad bottom. Then there was a dangerous thunderstorm forecast. We didn't get hit by lightning or sucked up by a tornado waterspout, but I was soaked, we had tense moments of microburst laying the rig down flat. The small mainsail on this boat is enough to overpower the rudder, so when a gust hits, the boat spins up into the wind no matter what you do with the rudder. In spite of all that wind, we didn't get sailing very much, just tried to recover from a knockdown. Then the wind totally stopped. Dead.
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After a few hours some wind did settle in and we were on our way down the Bay. The wind went from South to Calm to Southwest. The most productive part of the trip was about 20 miles done overnight before the wind died again.
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As I am writing this we are becalmed at the mouth of the Choptank River. The forecast is 5-10 W or SW. It is totally calm. I have been up 24 hours plus and haven't even made 1/2 the voyage. If the wind had happened as forecast we would probably be close to Crisfield. None of the actual wind was remotely like the forecast. Direction, strength, and when it would occur, none matched the forecast.
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When the wind was South it was tediously slow, but we were close hauled sailing to windward and it is possible to adjust the boat so that it sails itself. That luxury vanished with the storm winds when I couldn't leave the helm for a second.
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The wind refused to come to the mouth of the Choptank. The water was flat with a few little wavelets, not ripples, not from wind, but from power boats. I tried to use any little puffs of wind to improve our position, but there was also the tide current problem. The Chesapeake is really an estuary and has current of water draining off from its watershed, it also has currents created by the tides. At certain places the water is constricted, like at the Bay Bridge, and the currents are enough that you have to take them into consideration. At the Bay Bridge we had to tack back and forth beneath the trestle until a gust got us through. It was the same way on the Bay at the mouth of the Choptank.
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Let's say by noon I had enough little spurts and starts of wind to sail across the Bay. When I sailed back, I hadn't gained anything. The wind died again. It came back on the second sail across the Bay. I was feeling low at the amount of sailing we had done and the lack of progress, or maybe the loss of some distance toward our objective.
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Midafternoon we had enough wind to sail across and back with some hope of making distance to windward. The current was strong. I could see the trail of our wake and it pointed back, not to our tacking over on the other side, but to a point further downstream. We were losing ground.
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At some point I had to take over the helm from my arrangement to let the boat steer herself. Normally windward selfsteering can be set up so that the boat just follows the wind. We were seeing, however, that the balance of steering and sails fails to take into account the action of the sea state, and it has trouble with changing strengths and direction of the wind. Now I was steering the boat and had noticeable improvement in our results, we were making progress against the wind and tidal current.
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The whole afternoon went on like this, tough winch grinding tacks and a small gain when we got near the other side. I would sometimes let the boat steer herself while I hook a break. I was getting sensitive to sunlight. My face will probably look like a pizza when I get into Crisfield.
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I was learning how to sail this boat, a slug covered with barnacles, to windward. Let the boat stand up by heading up till the jib starts vibrating. When a gust tries to heel the boat work the rudder to head up, keep the jib right on the edge. By keeping the boat more vertical the keel is more effective at preventing leeway. By keeping the jib right on the edge the lift/drag ratio is at its optimum. The sail is creating less drag relative to the lift it's creating.
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After tacking against wind and current all afternoon, it was time to find a place to anchor. I searched ahead on the chart and it was obvious I had to anchor on the West shore and the mouth of the Patuxent River looked promising. I would be sheltered on 3 sides. I had never been in that anchorage, so I thought about sailing in and out of it, then making preparations to douse the genoa and get the anchor ready to let go.
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The anchor, genoa, and dinghy are all on the bow making it difficult to prepare to anchor. It was now rough in the Bay, probably difficult and dangerous to work on the bow without dropping the genoa. I sailed as close to the mouth of the river as I could, then dropped the genoa. Next I got the anchor out on deck. My plan of sailing into the river became impossible, sailing under main alone would not bring the little sloop into the wind and ebbing tide current. I looked for an alternative anchorage. Cove Point was nearby but open to the West. I sailed in and anchored in 14 feet of water. It was very rough at anchor, the Bay chop came right in, no shelter. I dropped the main and triced it up. Now for food, wine, and sleep.
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The photo is of Cove Point.