As September came to an end, we were set to do one of the last
104 classes of 2024 when, unfortunately, one of our crew members had to drop out at the last moment. In the grand tradition of the sea, captain Frank, along with students Eric and Shelly carried on and had an amazing five day adventure. The weather was cool and comfortable, if a little damp and misty and the winds out of the northeast allowed for sailing three of the four underway days.
After a day of navigation prep and provisioning, Scholarship departed Lankford Bay Marina with clouds and the threat of rain. Since there were only two students, Captain Frank was standing in as Skipper of the Day. We did a speedometer calibration run in Langford Creek, using the techniques explained in Captain Tom Tursi’s recent
YouTube video. After determining that the knotmeter read about 15% high, we set the main and headsail, with a preventer to keep the boom in check as we did a broad reach down the river, eventually coming to a wing and wing run.
Just before getting to the green number 9 buoy in the Chester, we gybed the main, putting us back on a deep broad reach, which became a beam reach as we passed 9 and a close reach when we passed 6. Eventually, we found ourselves hard on the wind as we worked our way up to the red number 2 buoy and turned dead upwind to get into the Swan Creek Channel. Knowing the conditions would become restrictive as we went up the channel, we doused the main and the headsail and motored up into Swan Creek, stopping at mooring ball 1 in the Swan Creek Marina mooring field. We had sailed for over six hours in near perfect conditions and the gray overcast made the navigational aids pop out in a way that never happens in the summer haze.
We left the mooring field early the next morning, following SCHOLARSHIP's big sister,
NAVIGATOR, who was on her way north to do a DelMarVa circumnavigation. We turned south to pass around Love Point and down into the
Chesapeake Bay. While we did have wind on our stern, it was moving with us at the same speed we were making under power, so Skipper of the Day Eric elected to continue motoring in order to get as much distance under our keel as possible, since today’s trip was twice as long as the previous day’s.
Once we passed under the Annapolis Bay Bridge, we found that the land and the bridge combined to quash the breeze we had see earlier and we were required to continue motoring. We passed a few boats that were sailing, but almost all of them were headed across the Bay and most of them were motorsailing. Everyone we saw going north or south were, like us, sailing on the iron sail. Every now and then, the wind would pipe up and we would talk excitedly about setting the sail, but as soon as we spoke, the wind would drop back down.
After we passed the Bloody Point Bar Light and turned up into Eastern Bay, the crew was startled by the loud screeching of an engine alarm. Fear not, though, it was just Captain Frank running his daily casualty drill (no, he did not run one the previous day, as he could not think of a way to run a drill on himself). After shutting down the engine and calling for help, the crew walked through setting the anchor and maintaining our location while we waited for Tow Jamm, the local TowBoatUS company and good friends of the Maryland School. After performing a three bearing fix, we got underway again and headed for the Wye River. Approaching the Wye, we performed a navigation exercise of following a fathom line into an unmarked area of the river, between two shoal areas. After clearing the shoals, we turned south and headed for the Marina at Saint Michaels.
When we arrived at Saint Mikes, we were given an unusual slip assignment and soon discovered the reason - half of the marina was under water! The weather conditions had resulted in coastal flooding and many of the boats that would normally be in other parts of the marina were in “our” slips! After we tucked stern in, starboard side to, we headed into the bath house for showers and then into Foxy’s for a dinner and discussions.
Morning found us ready to go after a hearty breakfast at the Blue Crab and we were soon out of our slip and headed north. We passed under the Kent Narrows Bascule Bridge at 1130 - thirty minutes earlier than we had originally planned, despite our efforts to slow down - and we were soon out the other side and back in the Chester.
Skipper of the Day Shelly made the decision to have the crew hoist sails and we were soon romping along up the river, short tacking from one side to the other as we worked our way up against the tide and prevailing winds. We even saw the tiniest bit of sunshine before the clouds reasserted themselves and we dealt with the misty rain.
We had just dropped the sails and started motoring to our final destination when Shelly smelled smoke. Captain Frank was again training the crew in disaster preparedness and the crew leaped into action, calling for help and finding the source of the fire in record time. It was quickly out (simulated) and we were once again underway, after Shelly had determined our location with a two bearing fix.
We drifted into Comegy’s Bight about 4:30 and set two anchors in a Bahamanian moor. Dinner was prepped and we enjoyed pasta and meatballs with more discussions as the sun dropped below the horizon.
Morning came and the sun tried to peek through the clouds, but then gave up the effort. We set the mainsail before pulling up the anchors and sailed down the Chester River until we got to the entrance to Langford Creek, where we performed single handed crew overboard recoveries. Shelly and Eric are married (to each other) and they wanted to be sure that if one of them fell off the boat, the other one could safely perform a rescue. Under Captain Frank’s tutelage, they were soon reassured of their abilities and we were able to stow the COB gear, drop the sails and head for home.
After pumping out and refueling, we settled back into our slip and finished up the class. All agreed that we were sorry that our absent crewmember had missed this experience. It was truly fine sailing for a possible end of the season.
