2023 Chesapeake Bay Cruise

 

The ASA 104 cruising class that began on May 9, 2023 was the season’s first overnight cruise for Scholarship, one of the School’s two Island Packet 32 foot yachts. Captain Doug Riley of Vermont instructed. All four students had taken one or more other classes at MDSchool. 

The itinerary for the cruise involved a passage through Kent Island Narrows, a dredged channel that is subject to shoaling over time. The week before the class, Captain Riley contacted a few sources of recent, on-the-water local knowledge to determine if the Narrows was still navigable by a sailboat of Scholarship’s draft. They confirmed that it was – so the itinerary was fixed.
The four students and their instructor met on the boat the morning of the first class day. After introductions, the crew as a group conducted a thorough inspection of their boat. The goal was twofold: first, to supplement the reports of the boat’s previous crew that all vessel systems were ready for a 5-day class, and second, to learn how to inspect, and care for, an unfamiliar boat. The latter skill is important to anyone chartering a boat, or operating someone else’s boat for the first time.

Next, the crew planned meals, ashore and aboard, for the week. The aboard part of the meal plan became a shopping list for the purchase of provisions in town. 

The final big pre-departure task was the drawing and analysis of the entire itinerary on nautical charts. After a review of the techniques involved, the students worked as a team to plot the course. They collected, from both online and paper publications, the information necessary to navigate each leg of the course by magnetic compass, depth sounder and knot meter. The day ended with dinner in town, where the crews of the other two MDSchool boats that would leave the next day were also dining.

The first sailing day began with a more routine inspection of the boat. Each student performed a portion of the daily departure checklist as either engineer, bosun, or navigator. The crew rotated these tasks and positions each day. Crewman Hector was student captain of the day.

With Hector coordinating, Scholarship left her slip smoothly at 0945, using MDSchool’s familiar (and failsafe) running-dockline technique. Navigation per the previous day’s planning began at once. The crew’s preparation proved accurate, as each waypoint came and went. Captain Riley initiated a crew-overboard recovery drill, and went over other emergency procedures as the trip progressed.

Upon entering the narrow inner Swan Creek channel, the crew switched to pilotage navigation, referring to physical landmarks and depths rather than compass courses. Swan Creek Marina, north of Rock Hall, confirmed Scholarship’s request for a mooring ball in the Creek for the night. After a brief discussion of the use of a mooring bridle, the crew tied up to Mooring #5. Captain Riley then led a review of the ASA’s knowledge requirements for the 104 level. Finally, the crew practiced the various knots they needed to know at the 104 level. Crewman Dan prepared a fine supper of pasta with hot and sweet sausage and peppers, and salad. After deploying the anchor light at dusk, the crew retired for the night.

The crew kept a close eye on the charge state of Scholarship’s batteries once the engine was off. The boat had just received a brand-new refrigeration system, whose exact power consumption needed monitoring. The goal was to allow the batteries to discharge no more than halfway before recharging them. Captain Riley checked the batteries’ voltage during the night, confirming that the system easily handled the new power requirements without violating the “half discharge” rule.

In the morning, the crew enjoyed a hot breakfast with Captain Riley’s bracing coffee. Dan, a Coast Guard veteran, became captain of the day, supervising the pre-departure tasks. Scholarship then left Swan Creek for the trip’s longest leg. This leg began with a series of courses south, passing under the mighty Bay Bridge at 1115 hours. After rounding Bloody Point Light, the crew proceeded northeast into Eastern Bay, and finally south again toward the town of St. Michaels. Winds were light from the south, so the sailors relied only on the engine until beginning the northeasterly legs. Then up went the sails – along with a gybe-preventer line rigged between the boom and the deck.

The use of the sails resulted in a few degrees of leeway, as usual. The crew confirmed this fact when checking their progress against their navigation plan. They compensated by adopting a more windward compass course to bring them more directly to their selected waypoints. (This process is covered in detail in the ASA105 Coastal Navigation course.)

Turning south again, the crew furled the sails -- the light breeze was once again on the nose. Resuming pilotage navigation, they made the critical transit around a shoal at the mouth of the Wye River. Oncer past this point, they radioed St. Michael’s Marina for a slip assignment. Scholarship entered the picturesque little harbor, past an incongruously massive cruise ship. The crew docked stern-first, using the usual MDS running-dockline procedure. They then enjoyed the showers at the marina and, finally, a fine dinner at Foxy’s restaurant on the dock, just a few yards from their boat. Some very friendly mallard ducks visited their table now and then.

The next day presented timing challenges: Captain Riley advised the crew to transit Kent Narrows just before high tide at mid-day. For that to happen, they would need to make the 1030 opening of the little drawbridge at the south end of the Narrows. The crew performed their pre-departure checks early in the morning, and left quaint St. Michaels behind at 0745. Student captain Alex was in charge. The narrow channel leading to the Kent Narrows bridge again required pilotage. The crew monitored their progress closely, watching the navigation markers, and the chart, to stay off the surrounding shoals. At about 1015 hours they announced their presence to the drawbridge tender on VHF Channel 13. The tender radioed back a few minutes later to warn them that he was delaying the bridge opening by a few minutes to accommodate road construction. Scholarship orbited in the basin, waiting in a substantial northerly current, until the drawbridge’s warning horn and bell sounded. The crew then motored smartly under the open bridge, keeping up steerage way in the brisk following current.

Scholarship next docked at the Piney Narrows marina. With some tips from Captain Riley, the helmsman turned 180 degrees to stem the current and motored gently to the Marina’s pumpout dock. After pumping out, Scholarship used the current to turn smartly around again, and began the infamous Kent Narrows channel passage. The dredged Narrows channel had grown even narrower thanks to moving sediment. The Coast Guard had placed temporary buoys to mark the extra-narrow spots. Scholarship’s crew watched their depth sounder, and the navigational markers both ahead and behind, to stay in the channel. The depths at high tide proved more than sufficient for an uneventful transit.

Leaving Kent Narrows, the student navigator of the day plotted a compass bearing that would bring the boat back onto the course it had followed two days before, although this time northerly instead of southerly. On the way up the Chester River, the crew reviewed MDSchool’s procedure for calibrating a ship’s compass by the use of a sundial. Upon reaching Scholarship’s home waters near the mouth of Langford Creek, the crew set up their sundial on the foredeck. They then motored on various compass headings, each time noting the sun’s horizontal angle to the boat and the precise time of the observation (per the online U.S. Naval Observatory website).

After gathering the raw data needed to calculate the compass error (deviation), the crew next practiced navigating by following a depth contour as read from the boat’s depth sounder. This old-time method is still useful to cross-check navigation accomplished by other means!

At the day’s end, the crew anchored Scholarship in a charming little bay in the Corsica River. They used a “forked moor,” a technique that employs two anchors set from the bow to reduce swing. Hector prepared a delicious meal of beef tacos and guacamole, both made from scratch. The crew took one last opportunity to study for the ASA104 written test.

Day 5 began with the short cruise back to Lankford Bay Marina. Student Nenad was the final student captain of the day. The crew docked the boat at the Marina’s pumpout dock, prompting further discussion of docking and undocking techniques. Next came fueling at a different dock, once again involving some specific close-quarters boat handling. Finally, Scholarship arrived back in her home slip in the early afternoon. The crew unloaded the boat, cleaned and straightened up everything, and moved to the School office for the ASA test.

All four students got high test grades. After a class discussion of the few wrong answers, Captain Riley awarded diplomas and endorsed everyone’s ASA logbook. The students promised to keep in touch and perhaps sail together again.