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2023 DELMARVA Reports |
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Arrival Day The crew all arrived between noon and five and were assigned their bunks and gear stowage location. The captain and mate talked about the parameters of the class and then we did a through investigation of the below-deck gear, so that everyone knew where everything was located. After we had finished this, the crew went out to dinner, then disbursed to their various sleeping locations - some aboard, some ashore. Day 1: Prep Day We began the day by doing training on deck. We found all of the on-deck gear, then walked through setting and dropping the main sail by the procedures. We then set and dropped the whisker pole. After lunch, the crew spent their time building the navigation we would use to get from our starting point at Langford Bay Marina in Rock Hall to Cape Charles City Marina in Cape Charles, Virginia, traveling offshore from Cape Henlopen to Cape Charles. Finally, we went to dinner together to bind the team. Day 2: LBM to Swan Creek Marina Mooring Field We got underway from LBM at about 0900 and followed our navigation plan to the green day beacon 3 on Lankford Creek. We then went to the LC beacon and back for a data run to calibrate our knotmeter. Next, we continued down to the red buoy 14 on Chester River. At this point, we set the main, the preventer and the genoa. We sailed to the area north of the Kent Narrows, where we performed crew overboard training to ensure everyone was able to handle an emergency offshore. After everyone had had a chance to handle the boat, we continued sailing up towards the mouth of the Chester River. Winds were out of the north west, so we found ourselves tacking back and forth to get to the red buoy 2. Eventually, between the dropping of the wind and our approach to the Swan Creek Channel, we doused the sails and motored into Swan Creek Marina’s mooring field, where we took ball 3, and watched our little sister, the sailing vessel Scholarship, captained by Robin Bauer, come in for the first night of their 104 class. Dinner was pasta with meatballs. Day 3: Swan Creek to Summit North Marina Skipper of the Day: Ali We dropped off the mooring ball at about 0600, just about sunup, and passed Scholarship as we headed out. Winds had dropped during the previous evening and we didn’t have enough to sail exclusively. We did set the main and were able to create enough apparent wind to motor-sail up the Bay, stemming the tide as we did. As we moved up the Bay, we performed multiple navigation exercises - two and three bearing fixes, danger bearing calculations, distance off calculations, running fixes and more. As we approached the western end of the C&D canal, we dropped our mainsail and continued to motor through the still ebbing tide, up till the Summit North Marina. We stopped in for fuel and tried to pump out, but the pump out facilities at Summit North were out of order Dinner was ashore, at the Grain H2O restaurant. Day 3: Summit North to offshore Skipper of the Day: Keith Again, we were underway before dawn and into the C&D canal. We exited the canal and crossed the shipping channels in the Delaware River. We stayed on the northern side of the shipping channel, as multiple cargo ships ran up and down the river and into the Delaware Bay. While we were traveling, Tony displayed his “short-order cook” skills and prepared scrambled eggs and “bacon-flavored” Spam for the crew. Once we entered the Bay, we crossed back over the channel and continued down to Cape Henlopen. After passing through the Hens and Chickens area, we stayed south of the Vessel Traffic Scheme and approached our first waypoint for the offshore run. We had prepared an offshore tracking sheet (926) and secured the students’ access to our GPS system. Only Frank and Tony could see that information, while the students used dead reckoning to determine when we got to the waypoint that had been set at the border between Maryland and Virginia. We arrived there about midnight and the plot was found to be off by 2.09 nautical miles. A good run. Dinner was chicken stew - Frank’s choice for first offshore dinner, since it was the least spicy option. Day 4: Offshore to Cape Charles Town Harbor Marina Skipper of the Day: Kurt. We continued our offshore travel and hit each of the next two waypoints within five miles, based on our dead reckoning plot. We passed very little traffic and the night was partly cloudy. Between this and the brightness of the full moon, very little of the start field was visible. By mid afternoon, we were back to using the GPS system to provide information on our track and we were quickly approaching the northern Virginia Cape region. Because the wind was directly behind us at almost exactly our speed, we found it necessary to, once again, drop our mainsail and motor. The conditions on the boat were warm and virtually windless but the excitement of making a landfall kept the crew keyed up. At about 1630, we passed underneath the Chesapeake Bay Bridge north span and returned to the Chesapeake Bay. In what was to become a running joke aboard, we found ourselves once again in a foul current and we motored up the Bay toward the entrance to the Cape Charles City Entrance Channel. Turning to the east, we felt our way into the harbor, adjusting our path to compensate for the offsetting 2 knot current that threatened to push us out of the channel. We found that the bottom light on one of the transit ranges was out - a fact that had been reported to us by an earlier 106 class - but because we were coming in with the last of the daylight we were able to keep on the range visually. We reported the outage to the US Coast Guard, along with some video of the problem and it was eventually passed on to the Notice to Mariners system for that area. We tied up stern-to in slip B-07 at the town marina, using the new docking bridle system we had been given just before we got underway. We had used the same system twice in Summit North and had found it very useful. Dinner was ashore, at the Shanty restaurant. Day 5 & 6: Cape Charles Town Harbor Marina to
Annapolis Mooring Field Skipper of the Day: Tom We used the 18 hours we spent in Cape Charles to catch up on our sleep, clean the boat, do the rest of the navigation plan and get some additional provisions. We topped this off by having breakfast ashore at the Cape Charles Coffee House, a breakfast restaurant that did not open until 0900, a fact that mystified our early-rising crew. At about 1400, we departed our slip and headed over to the town dock’s fuel pier to take on fuel and pump out our holding tank. By 1500, we were back in the Chesapeake Bay, with a lively wind out of the south. Since we were now headed north, we once again set the mainsail with a preventer and the genoa-sized headsail and started sailing, moving between a deep broad reach and a run. Dinner was beans and franks, followed by gourmet cookies from a pastry store in Cape Charles. As the sun went down, the wind freshened and veered into the west, eventually causing us to reef the headsail down to a jib. We found ourselves flying along with a flood tide and winds holding above 15 knots and occasionally gusting to 25. By this point, we were on a beam reach, a point of sail that Navigator prefers. At one point, we succeeded in reaching 8.2 knots of speed over ground. The night was completely overcast but the cloud layer was relatively thin and the bright full moon still showed through, providing enough light to clearly see people and objects in the cockpit. We were easily able to see the unlighted objects that randomly showed up on or near our path. Unfortunately, as the sun came up, the wind started to die and by 0800, we were back to motor-sailing on the main. We had first moved the headsail back to a genoa and then had to furl it completely as the apparent wind moved further and further onto our bow. During the night we had passed and avoided half a dozen cargo and passenger ships headed down the Bay, but now that the sun was up, the commercial traffic had, for the most part, disappeared and the recreational traffic - a far more dangerous group, from the crew’s point of view - made its appearance. Tony once again displayed his skill in the galley and we again dined on eggs and real bacon this time. We dropped the main sail at about 1130, as we started across the Bay near Thomas Point Shoal, intending to enter the Severn River area and the mooring field at Annapolis. By 1230, we were tied up to mooring ball 40 and the students had decided to take a water taxi ashore. The captain and mate followed later and the crew all met up at Pusser’s Waterfront Restaurant for dinner. We watched the parade of boat traffic in and out of Ego Alley as we dined and decided it was a fine night for the end of the cruise. Day 7: Annapolis Mooring Field to Langford Bay Marina We dropped off the mooring ball and headed into the very still air as we departed Annapolis, once again at about 0600, as the sun was just rising. During our transit back to the Chester River, Frank graded the crew’s 106 exams while Tony ran the boat and Ali, ready to show his own skills, did a pan of ham and eggs for all. We made it back to the Langford Bay Marina area a little before noon, where we pumped out again, topped off the fuel tank - we didn’t need much because of the amazing sail we had had up the Bay and returned to our slip. We cleaned the boat, took off all of our gear and filled the water tank, doing our best to leave the boat ready for the next 106 class which would start in just a couple of weeks. After goodbyes all around, the captain, mate and crew all departed for the homes and some well-deserved rest. Another 106 cruise was in the record books.
Captain Frank Mummert S/V NAVIGATOR, IP40
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