Thursday, September 24, 2009

Underway at Long Last!

Jo Beth underway in St. Simons Sound, passing Jekyll Island.





Usually, we avoid being out on the boat or water during the busy summer holidays – Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day. But this year, the Labor Day holiday was an exception. We slipped the lines and managed some time down sound for a few hours. It was good.

Our holiday weekend began with our arrival at the boat on Friday afternoon. We promptly set about our list of chores. First was to clean out the refrigerator/freezer cooling water intake filter and lines; then get the unit powered up and cooling down. Second was to circulate fresh sea water into the head (toilet).

Marine heads use seawater for flushing, so it is necessary to pump the stagnated water which had been laying in the sea water intake lines out and overboard. We also had to make an unplanned grocery run. As we were unpacking and getting settled, we discovered that in our haste to leave Savannah, we had neglected to bring enough food for the entire time we planned aboard. After completing the immediate chores with the refrigerator and head, and chatting with our dock neighbors Doug and Pat aboard Scallywag, a CSY 37, we headed into town for a delicious brick-oven pizza and to the local Winn-Dixie for groceries.

We spent most of Saturday doing the more mundane chores, which included giving the boat a good cleaning and bathing inside and out and inflating the dingy to so that marine growth on the hull along the waterline could be scraped off. In doing so, we discovered the dingy had yet another slow air leak in one of the pontoons. We also updated some of the paperwork necessary to keep the boat logs and safety equipment current and legal. Throughout, we were listening to weather forecasts and calculating (i.e. guessing) for the ideal conditions to get Jo Beth out of her slip and into St. Simons Sound for a nice romp. We decided Sunday looked the best.

We guessed right; Sunday was a beautiful and warm day, with an east-northeast breeze at 15-18 knots which occasionally gusted to 20 knots, conditions Jo Beth absolutely loves. With the yankee and mainsail set, she balances beautifully on a beam reach. Jo Beth typically carries two or three sails when sailing; for this trip, she carried a yankee, which is the forward most sail, andthe mainsail, the sail attached to the mast and boom.



Approaching the Sidney Lanier Bridge.

Unfortunately, St. Simons Sound and the Turtle River, the body of water that lay between our marina and the sound, sit roughly on an east-west orientation. This meant the trip out was a tacking beat into the breeze; the trip back to Brunswick Landing, a broad reach or run, with multiple jibes.

For the non-sailor, that pretty much means we had to go directly into the wind heading out and had the wind directly behind us coming back. Sailboats can’t move under sail when the wind is blowing from dead ahead of the boat. Sailboats can sail with the wind directly behind them, and some move fairly well this way, but it can be wearisome on the crew and have an uncomfortable motion. Most boats perform best a few points off of the wind, meaning when the wind moving over the boat at a forty-five degree angle to the bow or stern. When the wind is blowing from directly in front of or behind the boat, the boat must be tacked or jibed to make way. Tacking is moving the front of the boat to get to the optimum angle for sailing; jibing is doing the same with the back of the boat. If you were looking down from above on the track of a boat moving through the water while tacking or jibing, the boat’s course would appear as a zigzag.

We also had the outgoing tide in our favor as we passed under the Sidney Lanier Bridge and out of Brunswick Harbor and Jo Beth flew over the bottom at nearly 7 knots. However, as wind and tide were in opposition, the sea state was a hash of choppy waves, which made for the occasional burst of spray over the rail and an interesting downwind ride when time came to head back to the marina. Waves generated by opposing wind and current aren’t the long, generally even swells one sees on the open ocean, but are short and steep waves, piled in close together. When it’s really stormy, and wind and tide are in opposition, the sounds and coastal rivers along Georgia’s coast can resemble a washing machine.



Brunswick's historic commercial waterfront.

All in all, it was a fun afternoon and didn’t last nearly long enough, though it is still too warm to comfortably overnight aboard away from the dock and the luxuries of marina living. Fall is on the way, and that means better sailing in cooler weather and more reliable winds. We’re both looking forward to longer trips over the coming months.

Keep checking in with us.
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From the 'For-What-It's-Worth' department, I'm not sure why some pictures will open and expand when others won't. It seems to be a random issue. When I get it figured out, I'll fix them. Until then, please bear with me. Or, if you know what's happening; what I may be doing wrong or not doing at all, please feel free to share the knowledge.