George Town on Great Exuma in the Bahamas is a popular cruiser stop on any trip through the Exumas. Whether you stay there for the season or just pass through, George Town provides weather protection, a decent grocery store, free water and maybe more company than you would prefer.
We have stopped there many times over the years and always enjoyed it. A conch burger at Chat and Chill, washed down with a few Kalicks is sort of a must do stop for us whenever we pass through. While we have enjoyed the beach time, snorkeling and hiking on Stocking Island, we have never done much land travel on either Great Exuma or its southern sister, Little Exuma.
Northbound travel brings you past the airport, Sandals resort, Emerald Bay marina and generally well developed areas. Southbound is somewhat more rural and brings some interesting local culture to light.
Easy Riders
For our first adventure south we rented this motor scooter. We figured easy, fun and cheap. We figured wrong. It cost $50 when a car would have cost $80. While I used to ride when younger, handling a scooter is not like a big road bike, and having the extra rider behind me was a bit of a balance challenge. And while the roads are generally decent, there are many pot holes as deep as the little tires are high. Hit one at 30 mph and its all over. So that fear had my eyes glued to the road the entire trip. Regardless, we decided we would come back with better wheels and maybe even a guide.
On our next visit to George Town we were excited to hear about a guided tour south being arranged by one of the cruisers, thanks to Mark on CAVU. This tour would be guided by Cordell Thompson, a local Bahamian who traces his history on Great and Little Exuma back to the 1700’s. We had actually met him a while back when he was giving a talk on vollyball beach on bush medicine and home remedies. He turned out to be a wealth of knowledge about the island and its people.
Cordell with keel
Local Bahamian boat building is a fascinating story that goes beyond what I could cover here. But the sailing hulls they build, all out of local wood and all with 100% local materials and labor, are things of beauty. watching them race is as entertaining as it gets down here. In this picture, Cordell is holding a piece of mahogany with the correct grain pattern for what will become part of the keel of a racing slop.
Slave Plantation Ruins
We had to push through a fair amount of underbrush to get to the site of this former cotton plantation. British loyalists from the US were transplanted here, along with their slaves, after the revolution. This lasted until the 1830’s when slavery was abolished in Britain and all of her colonies. Many of the current population of the Bahamas can trace their ancestry to Loyalists (white) or slaves (black). We found it interesting that places like this plantation, with so much history, are left to crumble. Cordell said the attitude towards these sites was somewhat indifferent. And of course, there is little money available for such things when hurricane damage from two years ago is still to be repaired. (see our blog on the Ragged islands and Duncan town.
Some day we will come back and sit with Cordell to learn more. Comparing how the US recovered from slavery to how the Bahamas handled it would be interesting.
Mom’s Bakery
On a lighter note, here I am spooning on extra helpings of rum sauce on Mom’s famous rum cake. This is the real reason we made a second trip to Little Exuma.
Well its nearly 5 pm and I have a 24 hr cellular access that is just about to run out, so this is all for now. If you have a few extra days in George Town, we recommend a trip south.
We did a quick run up the Ragged Island and Jumento Cays chain. By this point we had been gone from the Turks and Caicos for a week and were somewhat overdue to clear Customs and Immigration back in to the Bahamas.
The chain runs for about a hundred miles, has more than a hundred islands, and has fewer than 100 people. They all live in Duncan Town at the southern tip of the chain.
Duncan Town is the little settlement that could. Exposed at it is, on one of the higher points in the Bahamas, it has been devastated by hurricanes most recently, Irma. Being a long distance from Nassau, the money to reconstruct has been slow to appear. And now the more recent devastation in Abaco is spreading rebuilding funds even more thin.
The police station has yet to be repaired, along with many other structures in town. But work has begun on a new school and a solar power plant.
We took our dinghy up the long mangrove channel to the town dock and walked up the hill to town. Signs of rebuilding were everywhere but with a long way yet to go. We had a nice lunch at Sheila’s Fisherman Lodge and met Adrian who rode out the Irma in a house that was mostly destroyed. He told us about having to leave that house as it was being torn apart by 200 mph winds and escape to the neighbor’s house still standing. Hard to imaging what it was like, as the house that was destroyed by the hurricane was built with thick walls of stone.
The Raggeds raw beauty and nearly unoccupied land and water suggest what the Exumas must have been like many years ago. Spectacular beaches, clear water and white sand anchorages make for a nearly perfect cruising ground. I say nearly perfect as there are few places to hide from a significant cold front. The few other cruisers we ran into down there all knew each other – group of hardy sailors that return every year for a little relaxation and camaraderie at the Hog Cay Yacht Club.
DCIM\101GOPRO\GOPR3039.JPG
After a five days in the Acklins and a few more in the Raggeds we would have enjoyed some company at the “Yacht Club” but we were the only boat anchored in the bay. We sat through yet another minor weather front but this time our anchor was well set. After diving on this set I was beginning to really appreciate the Raggeds.
How an anchor should look
We hiked across to the windward side of the island and enjoyed some great views. Also enjoyed a nice sunrise before moving north.
Sunrise at Hog Cay
By now we were ten days out of Turks and Caicos so decided to get back to George Town to clear in at Customs & Immigration. The shortest route is through Hog Cay Cut (a different Hog Cay) but it looked a bit tricky so we took the long way around. That did provide for some very pretty motoring across white sand banks. About ten feet deep but we could count the blades of grass below.
A cruise through the Bight of Acklins definitely qualifies as remote. We were there for five days and never saw another boat of any kind. We went ashore one day and barely found anyone there either. Since the population is only about 500 that is understandable.
We left Provo, Turks & Caiscos, midday and rounded Castle Island at the southern tip of Acklins just before dawn. Our destination was Delectable Bay but the timing of the tides did not support the more direct route along the back side of the island so we ran north to the tip of Long Cay and entered the Bight there.
Our choice of Delectable Bay met two criteria. First, it would allow us to visit a couple of the small settlements on the island and second, it would provide some protection from strong northeasterly winds predicted for that night. Active Captain comments mentioned poor holding with sand over marl, but we figured we could get a decent grip somewhere.
We anchored using our usual technique to set the anchor, including backing down at 1200 rpm or so. Our first attempt held so we were encouraged, until I dove on the anchor.
DCIM\101GOPRO\G0022891.JPG
Looking at this you might wonder why we didn’t pull up and re-anchor. But this photo was taken after the blow. When I initially dove on the anchor there was a fair amount of sand piled up in front, making it appear the anchor was more deeply set than it was. After 8 hours of winds gusting to 40 knots I suspect all the loose sand was washed away and this was all that was left to hold the anchor.
I have no idea how the anchor held through those winds. Luckily there were no wind shifts so it never had to re-set. I admit that I knew it was not the best set I have ever seen, but in my defense, we could drag a couple of miles before the nearest sand flats. Did I mention we were the only boat in the anchorage? In the entire Bight?
Our first land adventure was to the settlement of Pompey Bay. The sign is all we could find. I am sure there were a few houses somewhere, but after walking for 15 minutes and seeing no one, we returned to the dinghy to find a “bigger” town.
Town dinghy dock
PRIVATEER is in the background, so far away that she is not easily seen. Before the road was built, the only way to move up and down the island was by boat and these jetties were important. Now there are no boats and no reason to maintain the jetties. Leaving Pompey Bay we were getting hungry and thirsty so hoping Delectable Bay had more activity.
The store in Delectable Bay
When the population of the settlement is only about 20, there is no need for a sign to identify the local store. We would have missed it but for the lady near by that invited us in. Not much to sell, some dry goods, a few sheets of drywall and, thankfully, some cold Kalik!
Our next destination was Ragged Island and the distance required us to reposition near the west end of the Bight in order to cross over to Ragged and arrive before dark. We anchored at the tip of Long Cay in order to hop out to sea around 2am.
After our anchoring experience at Delectable Bay I was hoping for a little better set this time. While the set wasn’t perfect, a bit of a sea grass ball rolled up under the anchor, a calm night was predicted so all was well.
The weather pretty much dictated our early departure. A significant cold front was heading our way and there is no west protection in the Bight. We did miss out on some land adventures that we had planned, but as a cruising ground, its hard to get too excited about the Bight of Acklins. We hear that there is some good snorkeling further south and we didn’t get down there, but the route is a bit shallow for our 5′ draft. It is also difficult to get near shore for any wind protection as the slope of the shore is shallow quite a ways out into the bay. And did I mention the holding is difficult?
We installed flopper stoppers as part of the build and commissioning process three years ago. And never used them until just last week. Not that we haven’t rolled, we have. But were heretofore either too lazy or too late to deploy them. More on the “too late” comment later.
For those of you unfamiliar with the various stabilization options for a trawler such as ours, there are two approaches to enhanced stabilization while running, paravanes or hydraulic fins. We have hydraulic fins for stabilization while underway. They work well, as long as the hydraulic systems are operational. Paravanes also work well, but do not require hydraulics, so you might see a serious ocean crossing trawler with both for redundancy.
Paravanes and flopper stoppers look somewhat similar, so might be confused with each other. But paravanes drag a “fish” though the water that dives with speed and this creates very strong loads on the system. Paravane systems are therefore pretty beefy. You see them on commercial fishing boats everywhere.
Flopper stoppers just pull drag panels up and down while the boat is at anchor and therefore are not nearly so strong. Looking at the picture above, you can see how the system functions. Poles are deployed from either side of the superstructure, guyed from the mast above and then with lines fore and aft. The drag panels, we call them doors, are then lowered from the boat deck into the water. They function by sinking easily but providing resistance when pulled up; the “doors” open and close in opposition to each other with the roll of the boat.
The Doors
Here is one of the doors. You can see it is hinged down the centerline, with cables for connection to the down line. They are about 3’x3′ and weigh about 20lbs. They can be a bit awkward to raise and lower. They can easily bang against the hull if you either are not careful, or you are already rolling. And this is what I meant about being “too late” to deploy the system.
lines from top of the mast
These guy lines hold the pole out perpendicular to the boat and horizontal with the water.
Pole attaches to the side of the boat at the upper boat deck
The poles tuck up against the boat deck when folded back and then pivot out when deployed. The operation can be a little tricky. The attachment point also needs to be well reinforced. We specified the system at time of build so this area was beefed up in the mold. This can be accomplished as an aftermarket operation but requires a bit of work, with maybe some advice and councel from the builder. I know some folks have mounted their poles lower on the hull in order to make it easier to reinforce.
Note that we have a mast. We had originally specified an arch but the builder determined that the arch did not have sufficient height to enable the angles necessary to support the poles. Now that we have the mast, we sorta like the look! As an aftermarket install to a boat with an arch, a center pole for support might work well.
Our poles are carbon fiber to keep them light, but aluminum works well. They look like re-purposed spinnaker poles and that is probably what they are (were).
Deployment takes about 15 minutes if you keep all the lines attached. We are looking at adding additional lines to aide in dropping the doors over the side and may have storage bags fabricated that attach to the outside of the boat deck rails to simplify deployment and retrieval.
So, how does the system work? We are quite pleased with our first experience. We were anchored in a bay with direct wind protection but were expecting a wrap around swell with an oncoming front. When the swell arrived we did roll, but the roll max angle was lower than expected, the roll rate was much slower and the roll attenuated much faster than in the past. After an initial roll, the next roll was about 50% of the first, and so on.
This was a mild swell, visible to the eye but less than a foot in height. Plenty to roll us when abeam the swell. We were able to sleep through the night just fine.
We do have a concern about what we would do if we needed to vacate an anchorage in an emergency. Lots of gear in the water. Although we haven’t tried it, we believe we could motor short distances at low speed, to re-anchor for example, with the doors just raised out of the water. For more estensive maneuvering we could pull the doors up on deck but leave the poles extended. Not a perfect solution, but it could be done quickly.
We are headed to Cambridge Cay next and will be there for a month. With a strong North wind a pretty good swell can come in so we will deploy the system for the entire month and report back on performance.
We came over from the Bahamas in Late November. The plan was to spend Christmas at Blue Haven Marina, hosting our sons and their significant others. Thought I would provide a few notes on our initial impressions.
We did the trip as an overnight from Georgetown and got here mid day. Our first port of call was Turtle Cove Marina on the north coast of Providenciales. Two marina options here, Turtle Cove and Blue Haven. Both are accessed through a cut in the reef. Sellers Cut, leading to Turtle cove is winding and at times narrow and shallow. My best estimate is maybe 6.6′ at low in one spot. We used the free escort in and out. We arrived with about 18 knots wind and maybe 6′ rollers at the entrance. looked a lot more challenging than it turned out to be.
Turtle Cove is a decent marina. I wont comment further, as the Active Captain comments are, in the aggregate, accurate. I would go there again. Our objective going here was to save money till we needed to be at Blue Haven as it is half the price.
We left Turtle Cove and went out the cut and up to Blue Haven. The cut into Blue Haven is straight and deep. Maybe 7’+ at low. No need for an escort. Blue Haven Marina is associated with the resort next door and all the amenities are provided to marina patrons, which is why we came here. Actuall three resorts, connected with shuttle services. The other two resorts are on Grace Bay, which is beautiful.
The resort itself is, at best, in transition. Never rebuilt after a hurricane two years ago. Some of the wrecked power sub stations are still lying around on the dock, just where they ended up after the storm, I presume. One dock is connected to land and has power and water. The other dock is free floating out in the channel. No power or water and a dinghy ride in. Still, a few mega yachts out there, as it is the only place they fit.
The dock we are on is mostly sport fish and chartered mini mega yachts. Also a few day boats for the tourist crowd. Lots of activity and not too much hassle. Maybe a bit more techno-Reggae than I would choose.
Decent kayaking in the mangroves and spectacular snorkeling out on the reef when it is calm, which is rare this time of year
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Took about 200 shots before I got this one of a Green Turtle. Mangroves are full of these guys but they only come out to feed at near high tide.
There are two other marinas on the island, both on the banks side. South Side is small but well maintained and has a nice bar and restaurant. Otherwise a bit secluded. Shallow entry. Maybe 6′ at high? We wee there by car.
Caicos shipyard carries a bit more water coming in. Also rather secluded. Docks being upgraded. New buildings. Promising. Also the only plae with any maintenance capability.
Provo has many fancy high rise resorts and lots of villas along the beach. good restaurants. Great grocery store, etc. Good roads, plenty of traffic, etc. Lots of expats mixed in with the locals. Somewhat different than the Bahamas. rental cars relatively cheap, taxis quite expensive. We use our bikes for shopping.
Cruising the TCI is somewhat challenging in mid winter. The typical northern swell will make many of the anchorages somewhat uncomfortable. We have tried to head over to Grand Turk, but the only anchorage is a roadstead and dinghys go to the beach. A challenge when there is any surf.
We are in Stuart, FL and will move down to Lake Worth tomorrow to stage for crossing the Gulf Stream on Friday, headed to the Bahamas. This will be crossing number ten or so, but I really do not feel I have a tactic to make the best of the Stream’s current.
(edit: I first released this on 9 Nov. just after the crossing. Then realized maybe doing math after no sleep is not a good idea. So if you read this yesterday and had some issues with the math, I apologize. Hopefully my edits have corrected the math errors)
On the sailboat we were usually between New England and the Caribbean and the Stream was just a small distraction on a 1500 mile trip. Our tactic was to cross at right angles to the current and just maintain our general heading. The current would set us twenty miles or so, one way or the other. By the time we exited, we would just adjust our heading by a degree or two and keep on sailing. The word was, do not crab into the stream.
But sitting here in Florida, and wanting to go to Bimini, for example, the problem is a little different. I don’t really want to get set twenty miles north on a sixty mile trip. And I don’t want to run all the way down to the Keys, just to get a better angle. So I have been wondering just what is the most efficient method of crossing the Stream.
In central and southern Florida the Stream is about forty miles wide and has current from 2-4 knots, averaging 2.5 knots for the forty miles. A little internet searching will bring up as many tactics as there are sailors, but one can winnow those tactics down to just a few.
The first approach is to go south on the Florida coast in order to improve the angle, say Angelfish Creek to Bimini. This approach does provide a relatively quick, day hop, and if your goal is shortest possible time on the passage, this works. But proponents of this approach tend to forget about the days spent moving down the Florida coast, not to mention the pain of all the bridges if you do the trip inside on the ICW.
For the other approaches, lets use a trip from Lake Worth inlet to West End, Bahamas. About fifty-five miles on a bearing of 95 degrees. The Explorer Charts recommend the classic navigation technique of calculating the required offset for the current and then setting a heading to accommodate that offset. See below.
Assuming one holds a constant heading, this tactic will generate a ground track roughly “S” shaped as the current first increases then decreases during the trip. Not sure why they say, “Dont angle into the current” because that is just what you are doing here.
This approach has lead to some folks suggesting sailing a purposefull “S” track. Proponents of this tactic suggest leaving Lake Worth and turning SE even further than necessary to hold the rhumb line. Getting ahead of the current, so to speak.
Waterway Guide provides headings for various boat speeds and destinations, essentially the same as the Explorer chart Again, holding a constant heading to counteract the average current will produce an “s” curve track.
Then there is what the old salts told me way back in my sailing days. And that was to take up a heading perpendicular to the stream and let the stream set you. Then angle back to your destination once clear. This does have the advantage of getting you out of the stream the fastest, even if it does drop you off fifteen miles north of your desired track.
Finally, there is the approach of letting the autopilot carry you across the stream exactly on the rhumb line. This approach will get you across the stream in the shortest distance, as compared to the previous, shortest time approach.
As an aside, think about what would happen if boat speed were four knots and if the Stream were four knots. If you let the autopilot drive, you will stand still, with speed through the water of four knots and speed made good of ZERO! On the other hand, if you took the perpendicular heading approach, you would still get across the stream, albeit far from your intended destination.
So what is the modern mariner to do! Time for a little math. Using a speed through the water of 8 knots and a current of 2.5 knots for a distance of 40 miles, I would estimate about 12 miles of drift north. That would require an 11 degree offset and reduce my velocity made good (VMG) by one knot. That would increase my time by 45 minutes or so.
Alternatively, I could cross at 8 knots by not crabbing, then come back south 12 miles, which would increase my time by 1.5 hrs.
In the final analysis, all of the options fall in between those two options; the “S” curve approach is a compromise between the shortest time and shortest distance approach.
I plotted a course across the Gulf Stream and estimated the speed of the current every 5 miles. Here is my slice across the Stream, crossing from Lake Worth to West End
And then I built a table of headings and speeds for each 5 mile segment of the trip.
NM
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Leg
0
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
Knots
1
2
2.5
3
2
2
2
1.5
1
Course
95
95
95
95
95
95
95
95
95
STW
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
HDG
102
109
113
117
109
109
109
106
102
Corr.
7
14
18
22
14
14
14
11
7
SOG
7.7
7.5
7
7
7.5
7.5
7.5
7.5
7.7
Hrs1
0
0.6
0.6
0.6
0.6
0.6
0.6
0.6
0.6
Hrs2
0
0.7
0.7
0.7
0.7
0.7
0.7
0.7
0.6
Set (NM)
0
1.3
1.6
1.9
1.3
1.3
1.3
0.9
0.6
If this is accurate, it should take me 5 hours, 45 minutes to cross, versus the 5 hrs with no current. Frankly, I doubt we will do this well.
My plan is to capture our actual headings and ground speeds every 5 miles and compare them to the calculated values.
My hypothesis is that the fastest way to get from point A to point B, in the presence of current is the shortest distance route, not the shortest time route. And that means running the rhumb line. The easiest way to run the rhumb line is to let the autopilot drive the boat, so that is what I will do.
Note that our ultimate destination is Palm Cay on New Providence. So the full question gets a bit more complex. The route we will take, crossing the stream at right angles, results in a total distance to our destination of 201 nm. If we were to go by the most direct route, the course would cross the stream on a course of about 125 degrees, angling into the stream. So the bigger question becomes: is it better to cross at right angles to the stream, even if that takes you out of your way. In this case, 10 miles out of your way.
I will update the blog after our crossing. We will do the 40 mile test run, then turn south and run overnight to Palm Cay marina, so give me a few days to do the data analysis.
Part 2 Trip complete:
Good news is, the trip was great. Stream was smooth and for the rest of the trip the water was like glass. And a 3/4 moon to boot. So how did all the calculations work out? Below is a table that shows the calculated GS current and the actual current derived mathematically from my actual headings and SOG. (speed over ground). (Best I can do to get all the numbers on the chart)
Miles
0.0
5.0
10.0
15.0
20.0
25.0
30.0
35.0
40.0
Leg
0.0
5.0
5.0
5.0
5.0
5.0
5.0
5.0
5.0
Estimated current
1.0
2.0
2.5
3.0
2.0
2.0
2.0
1.5
1.0
Course
95.0
95.0
95.0
95.0
95.0
95.0
95.0
95.0
95.0
Speed Through Water
8.0
8.0
8.0
8.0
8.0
8.0
8.0
8.0
8.0
Estimated Heading
102.0
109.0
113.0
117.0
109.0
109.0
109.0
106.0
102.0
Estimated Speed Over Ground
7.7
7.5
7.0
7.0
7.5
7.5
7.5
7.5
7.7
Set
0.0
1.3
1.6
1.9
1.3
1.3
1.3
0.9
0.6
Actual Heading
110.0
116.0
115.0
116.0
109.0
103.0
102.0
101.0
100.0
Actual Speed Over Ground
7.7
7.5
7.5
7.5
7.7
7.8
7.8
7.9
7.9
Actual Current
2.0
2.7
2.6
2.7
2.0
1.5
1.0
1.0
1.0
As you can see, the actual current in the Stream was a bit less than calculated, so our speeds were better than planned. With a no-current crossing time of 5 hours, and an estimated crossing time of 5hours, 45 minutes with the calculated current, our crossing time was 5 hours, 25 minutes. Our total time for the 201 mile trip was 25.5 hours, exactly as predicted, which means we were slower than 8 knots for the portion of the trip once we exited the stream.
Now lets compare this to the direct route. The no-current total time for the 191 miles at 8 knots would be 23.9 hours. At a 125 degree heading across the stream we would be in the Stream for 50 miles at an average speed of 6 knots. At that speed and distance it would take us 8.33 hours to cross the stream. We would complete the remaining 141 miles at 8 knots in 17.6 hrs for a total time of 26 hrs, all that using the original calculated estimate of Gulf Stream current.
However!! The stream was not as strong as estimated. If we use the actual stream data calculated from our actual trip, then the direct route crossing would not have taken 8.33 hours but just 7.8 hours. And that would result in a total trip time of 25.5 hours. Exactly the same!
A brief note on geometry here. As angle A, in this case the angle between a route perpendicular to the current and one angling into the current, increases, the hypotenuse, in this case, the time/distance in the Stream, increases rapidly (geometrically, actually). So in our case, with a direct route angle of 122 degrees and the estimated current of 2.5 knots, it is better to take the perpendicular/shortest distance route. At the actual current of about 2.2 knots, the two trips are identical in time. At this angle, slower current favors the direct route and stronger current favors the perpendicular route. With lesser currents a larger angle of attack can be taken. With stronger current, say the more typical 3 knots, then the perpendicular route will be favored.
And a last note about boat speed. The slower the boat, the more favored the perpendicular route will be – up to a point. If your boat only goes 4 knots, and the current is 4 knots, take a plane. Just kidding, but in this whole experiment we used a constant 8 knots and variable angles of attack and current level. Varying boat speed leads to the same conclusion, the more time you spend in the stream, the larger the penalty.
With all this, my conclusion is: the fastest way to cross the Gulf Stream at typical current levels is to cross at right angles and crab into the current sufficiently to maintain a course perpendicular to the current. And the best way to accomplish that is to use a capable autopilot.
I understand the “S” curve idea, but I believe it is a hold over from when autopilots just held a course. Using old fashioned navigation skills to calculate a heading to counteract set and drift, a constant heading would result in an “S” curve track with the Gulf Stream current. But that does not make an “S” course efficient.
Of course this over-simplifies the problem. If you are trying to make a day hop of it, and want to check in at Bimini or West End, then you might need to pick and choose your departure point. Lake Worth works well for West End, Fort Lauderdale or Miami for Bimini. And the slower your boat the more you might need a lift from the stream to improve your ground speed. And finally, if the weather stinks in the stream, moving south in the meantime might improve things. But I wouldn’t waste time going to Miami for the angle if the weather was decent when I was still in Lake Worth.
Finally, a note on calculating speeds, angles and distances. The easiest and quickest way is with an old fashioned E6B flight computer, nowadays available on a computer or as a phone app. Using the tool you can quickly and easily test various alternatives and choose the best combination of launch point, course, etc. So, try this experiment yourself and see what you find.
The 12M Worlds were here this summer. One day they raced in Narraganset Bay so we took the boat up to watch. We hung around for the start then positioned about half way up the course and watched the early starters on their spinnaker runs while the later starts tacked upwind. A spectacular sight. Some folks wish the Americas Cup would go back to these more “traditional” boats. But back then, they were cutting edge, just like the mono-hull planing boats being tested now for the next cup.
Saturday morning the 12M fleet did a parade of boats through the harbor. We took the dinghy over and watched. Days like this are why we spend our summers in Newport. What follows is just a photo collection of a few boats from the parade. Hope you enjoy.
APHRODITE was built by the Purdy Boat Company and launched in May of 1937 for Wall Street financier and later Ambassador to the Court of St. James, John Hay (Jock) Whitney of Manhasset, Long Island. APHRODITE’S guest list over the years reads like a “Who’s Who” in the worlds of government, business and entertainment with such luminaries as Fred Astaire, Sir Laurence Olivier, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Henry Ford II, FDR advisor Harry Hopkins and Nelson Rockefeller aboard for summer day cruises down Long Island Sound. APHRODITE also once served as the site for a birthday party for Shirley Temple. She can do 30 mph.
We took Privateer out today just to check all the systems after a 2000 hour service and a change of all her oils and fluids. All that went fine.
The area just north of Newport can be pretty crowded so occasionally someone shows up near us that I didnt see coming. In the picture below you can see Big Blue on AIS coming by. She is a 45′ cabin cruiser doing 25 knots.
Big Blue comes by on our port
So I look out the side and see nothing. I get up and go to the door, nothing. Then a minute later she disappears from the screen as well. I search the screen and she reappears about a mile north, where she really is.
My assumption is, there was a malfunction in either her transmission or my reception. More likely her transmission. I have seen AIS return for boats showing them going backwards or sideways, a transmission error that I could sort of comprehend, but this is the first time I have ever seen a boat displaced by more than a mile. The ramifications are quite disturbing.
We are back in our slip in Newport. The trip up from Annapolis was uneventful. We left Annapolis and stopped at the Sassafras river for the night, then on to Summit North marina in the canal.
The trip from Annapolis to Newport
We left Summit North at sunrise with fellow Krogens Gratitude and Serenity. As we pulled out the rail bridge announced it was lowering in 15 minutes. Made it with time to spare, good deal because it stays down for 15 minutes.
Delaware bay was calm. Yay! We got there about two hours later than I would like, running the current down the bay is tricky because at our speed we can’t make it the entire way to Cape May without a current reversal. As it turned out we pushed up our water speed to eight knots and and averaged 10 knots or better through the water for four hours, which is about as good as you can do. By the time we rounded cape may we were only facing a knot or so of foul current and were about an hour earlier than I had predicted.
Because of the weather forecast we had earlier given up on our preferred course direct to Newport and were headed to NYC. But then Gratitude called with the latest forecast which pushed back the front’s arrival time. With the weather window reopening, and being a little ahead of schedule, we and Gratitude adjusted course for Newport.
The overnight portion of the trip was pleasant and we arrived at Newport around 3pm the next day. The front arrived about 6pm. Nasty, but by then we were tied up and enjoying happy hour.
Newport and Summer Projects
After nine months of cruising we need a little down time for doctors, dentists and boat projects. Lots of miscellaneous maintenance and upgrade tasks get deferred until we are back in Newport. I won’t bore you with what my dentist had to say, but the boat projects might be interesting to some.
Phase on is ordering parts and materials. Amazon Prime helps, as does a box at the local Post Office.
This week’s drop of boat parts
The water heater
We have a nice water heater but it was originally wired 120V. Last year we moved most everything on the panel to 220V. That caused a problem for the genset when the heater unbalanced the load on one of the 120V legs.
As it turns out, changing over to 220v is just a matter of swapping to a 220v heater coil and re-wiring for 220v at the panel. With a little help from an electrician (Scotty for all you Krogen folks) the job was simple. The heater had been slow to heat of late so I wasn’t surprised to see that the coil was pretty crusty. As an aside, we also changed out the zinc, which could easily have lasted another few years after the three years it had already been in there.
The lightning arrester project
I wrote a more complete post on the lightning deflection project a while back. finishing touches now. Besides the primary system that directs a strike from the mast to the waterline, it is important to break the link from likely entry points, such as antennas, to the main electrical panels and ground systems. Central to that is adding arresters to each antenna cable as close to the antenna as possible.
two lightning arresters connected to antenna cables with N type connectors.
Every electrical item on the mast needs to be isolated from the panel as well. That is done with diodes.
panel mods
NMEA devices are a challenge to protect so my guy, DR Ewen Thomson, designed his own box just for this application.
NMEA lightning arrester
The last piece of kit I need to deal with is the radar. A power cable and an ethernet cable. Both are relatively straightforward to protect, it is just that I cant find the end of the cable! Buried somewhere behind miles of wire looms. A project for another day.
John Deere raw water pumps
We have had a long running issue with the raw water pumps on our propulsion engines. They leak oil, and sometimes oil and water. John Deere was a little slow to get on it, but has been great to work with. In their defense, these are procured pumps and a general problem for the marine industry.
raw water pump with salty oil deposits
John Deere has redesigned the pump a couple of times and we are now the test boat for the latest design. Pumps on both engines are looking great. Hopefully this is the end of it.
Panel lighting
Our electrical panels in the pilot house are a thing of beauty. If you like red and blue and yellow glowing lights and bright voltage displays. Ok by day but a significant distraction at night. Reflected glare everywhere. And a parasitic power drain as well. So I presented the challenge to Scotty, who quickly took me from dealing with literally hundreds of individual light wires, to a single ground wire for each of the three panels. Adding three switches to the ground wires for the three panels provides me the ability to turn off all the panels.
panel backlight switches
A bit of safety kit
We try not to fall off the boat while we are under way. But if it could possibly happen, we need to be able to get back aboard. There is a fold down swim ladder but it is difficult to deploy from the water and almost impossible to deploy in any sort of sea conditions. So we bought a deployable emergency ladder.
emergency boarding ladder
I wish that were the end of my projects, but after crossing off a dozen or so, I managed to find a dozen new ones for my list:
holding tank sensor stuck
screen door broken
service windlasses
replace leaky hydraulic coolant water pump
change engine and transmission oils
add boost capability to our isolation transformer
upgrade radar (maybe)
replace paddle wheel speed devices with sonar type
and the list goes on. No chance I will be caught up before we leave to head south in September. oh well…
We are working our way north towards Newport. Meanwhile, The Jersey coast is not playing nice. The challenge for this last leg is that we first have to negotiate Delaware Bay before we come up the Jersey shore and each has its challenges.
Lisa says I need to add photos to my blog so people will be interested. Since I have none that are related to Annapolis I will randomly throw in some of my past favorites from our trip south. Here is the first:
Grayson feeding the sharks off Key West. This would have been a 10 pound tuna.
Delaware bay is shallow and has a fair amount of current. That means that the wind driven waves, when opposed by current, will stand up straight and tall and close together. It doesn’t take much to make Delaware bay uncomfortable, And we try and avoid uncomfortable.
Delaware bay is about 50 miles long, so 6 hours should be enough time to run its full length. Northbound we can ride a flood current all the way. But southbound that doesn’t work so at least half the trip will be in foul current and as I mentioned, foul current and wind opposing is messy.
Takes a day to get down the bay, then if we stop for the night it means an expensive marina. There is one anchorage in Cape May but it is often crowded and the holding is not great. So for us, if we do stop, it is at a marina. Better to just keep going overnight to Newport or NYC. It is often easier to get a weather window to NYC, since this route keeps you close to shore, but then we have to deal with the East River and Long Island Sound, both of which present their own challenges.
One night at Cape May is not so bad but it is easy to get stuck here waiting on a weather window to go north because the weather pattern that makes Delaware bay decent is not always the same pattern desired for the Jersey coast. So here we sit, watching cold front after cold front roll out to sea.
But getting stuck in Annapolis isn’t too too bad. We are on a $30 mooring way back in Spa Creek. Totally protected and a short dinghy ride into town. Yesterday was dinner at the Boatyard Grill for the world’s best crab cakes. (100% crab, no filler). This morning I took the dinghy to one of many dinghy docks, most every street in town that ends at the water’s edge has a dinghy dock, and walked to the nearest bakery. Fresh croissants are perfect for a rainy morning on Spa Creek.
Short interruption while I complain about Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. Here are two cities with a large boating community that go out of their way to keep cruisers on their boats and out of the city. Miami has virtually no public dinghy docks. Meanwhile the little town of Annapolis has dozens. We spent $100 on dinner last night in Annapolis. This fall we spent four days anchored off in Miami and never got off the boat. Both we and the city missed out. I do understand the problem throughout Florida with derelict boats and the boat bums that live on them. The advantage Annapolis has is, it gets really, really cold here in winter. So the boat bums all go south and problem solved for Annapolis.
Time for another unrelated picture. This is my favorite turtle shot. Underwater action photography is not my specialty and I must have taken a hundred shots of this turtle before I got something half way decent:
Turtle at Coral Gardens, Warderick Wells, Exuma.
You might have noticed that there was a fairly major geographical jump in blog posts from the Exumas to Annapolis, so here is a short summary of our trip north.
We left Great Harbor Cay in the Berry Islands and went straight to Charleston, about 50 hours. Those of you who are keeping up will notice that this was a two-day overnight passage, which is major change to Lisa’s normal routine. We usually keep it to one overnight at a time but two things played into this. One is, Lisa really likes our stabilizers. And two is, she really likes Charleston. And whats not to like?
The trip itself went fine. Early on we had some headwinds and so we stayed east of the Gulf Stream until the winds died down. A little bumpy at first, but smoothed out as we ran north. Had about 24 hours of 3+ knots push. Actually had to slow down to avoid arriving too early to our slip at the Charleston City Marina.
This is a great marina. One long face dock that can hold dozens of boats. Free shuttle service to town. And what a town. Besides being steeped in history, and visually stunning, it has the greatest collection of outstanding restaurants. We ate out four times in five days and each meal was better than the last. Can’t wait to go back, but waistline and wallet have limits.
Seared Octopus with pork belly at McCrady’s Tavern.
From Charleston we hopped out again overnight to Morehead City and then ran up the ICW to Pungo creek for a pleasant anchorage and some sleep. From there it was a stop at Coinjock for fuel and prime rib. Next to Norfolk and the Norfolk Yacht and Country Club. What a deal this is. Nice floating docks for $1.50 a foot, plus access to the club’s facilities which included a full health club with indoor pool. We had a great dinner, watched the Kentucky Derby on a huge TV while being served free food, and generally pretended to be members. Highly recommended.
From Norfolk we entered the Chesapeake and stopped at a couple of our favorite remote anchorages before coming in to Annapolis yesterday. So now we are up to date so time for a few more unrelated photos:
Spotted Eagle Ray
These guys are fun to watch. With 8′ wing spans they often leap completely out of the water. Sometimes they swim in formations of up to five.
All for now, we will check in after our final leg back to Newport
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