I did not think I’d have any delivery opportunities this year, but in September Ned Jones a fellow Snipe sailor from the late 90s called looking for crew to take his Outbound 46 to Marsh Harbour in the Abacos. While Ned and I have corresponded on and off over the years – he always goons on me about my e-mail signature from back in the day: “Moderation in Moderation” which in retrospect I’m going to revive! – he lives in Rhode Island and we have not seen each other much despite having lots of friends in common. He said that I was recommended as a good delivery crew by Chip Johns. It’s nice to know I am establishing a good reputation in this genre as a competent offshore sailor and an easy guy to get along with in a tight space. This is something I do take a fair amount of pride in.
As always, the winter delivery window opens November 1 as hurricane season winds down and the insurance companies say “OK”. Ned was looking to take the boat from Annapolis, where it was stashed after an earlier trip from Newport waiting for the date and weather window to open, south to the Abacos for the winter. I had only a very narrow time frame it would work since I had committed to attending the Snipe Women’s Nationals in Miami (November 15-16) so Lisa could sail and I could be the SCIRA Rep and help with Race Committee. Plus this required a two day drive and a day ahead to to rig and practice. Practically that left only about a week window. Fortunately that week is what Ned had in mind, so I signed on.
The two weeks leading up to the departure were kind of Chaotic with the J24 East Coasts that I sailed with Steve Callison, cyclocross races on the weekends and my Ignite talk I was stressed about. Given the timing I also needed to pack the van and Snipe ahead of time for the drive to Miami as the flight home from the Bahamas was the day before we had to leave. Ned was sending weather reports and routing from WRI and there was a bit of churn in the crew (4) but we eventually settled on an early November 4 departure date due to other crew commitments. As the forecasts unfolded this was pushing the departure a bit late with a strong low coming off the coast driving a southwesterly flow; not an ideal direction. As it turns out, we did have a last minute crew cancelation but we decided to go with three as we all have a lot of off shore experience: Ned, Jordy Murphy and me. That made for a less relaxed watch schedule as we wanted to have 2 on deck for the night watches.
We departed on the 4th, a clear chilly morning and had a nice westerly for the ride down the Chesapeake Bay in the first 24 hours. Because of the impending low, we wanted to get south as fast as possible, out of the bay and to our Gulf Stream crossing point before the strong SW flow started. The breeze was decent but we motor sailed to maintain ~8 knots. We exited the bay and hugged the Virginia/North Carolina coast as day broke. Eventually we could bear off to cross the stream and have the best angle with the eventual SW flow. During the morning we watched the water temp steady rise into the 70s as we bore off and hit the Gulf Stream in the early afternoon about 30 miles off Cape Hatteras. The true breeze was about 90 degrees, making for a close reach as the breeze increased into the high teens and eventually 20s. We went to two reefs and later in the afternoon to a triple reef and the 100% jib and prepared for more breeze during the night.
As night fell we were solidly in the Gulf Stream and the breeze continued to build. We rolled the jib up half way and eventually all the way leaving just the triple reef, but the boat tracked much better with just the main. A true wind angle of 90 degrees with a narrow range was the sweet spot; any higher and the boat stalled, any lower and it was hard to handle with the waves, but in this groove we were at 7-8 knots reasonably through the waves. At one point we were seeing a steady 30 knots and then periods in the mid 30s with the highest gust to just shy of 40 knots. This was definitely more than predicted (a little less than 30 knots) and it was a very bumpy ride with the seas right on the beam. Unfortunately the autopilot was working too hard so we had to hand steer much of the night. There were some cockpit filler waves and one point when I was steering a solid wave came over the quarter and felt like a hip check. We took one hour watches at the wheel and tried as best we could to nap in the cockpit – no one was going below for more than a minute or two – as we were all feeling crappy. Not sick, just crappy. Fortunately, there was a good Moon on this trip and despite the breeze on the leading edge of the front it was reasonably clear so steering at night was not too disorienting. But you really had to concentrate on the analog wind direction instrument. By day break we were mostly through the stream and the breeze was moderating and starting to back. We kept the breeze on the beam slowly coming to our final southerly direction and steadily setting more sail as it lightened up. As gnarly as this was for us, I can only imagine what the crew on Magic Bus was experiencing in the thick of it northeast of us…
As it calmed down, we were all able to get some much needed decent sleep in the next 24 hours. The breeze freed up and we jibed several times. Eventually the breeze crapped out entirely and we had to motor sail. The entrance to Marsh Harbour requires daylight as almost nothing in the Bahamas is lit and if it is, it’s probably not reliable. So we had to slow way down in the last 12 hours to time the arrival just after daybreak. We even ended up doing some donuts for an hour before we felt comfortable entering the channel north of Man-O-War Cay and heading across the bay to Marsh Harbour. The trip was exactly 5 days (850 miles @ ~7 knots average).
We anchored about 10am, flew the quarantine flag, and launched the dinghy to go clear customs. Being a Sunday and the harbour customs office closed, the pro tip from Chris Meussler’s cab contact was to go out to the airport and clear customs at the general aviation office which only took an hour. We replaced the quarantine flag with the courtesy flag and headed into the marina to get fuel and wash the boat down. Jordy left for his flight while Ned and I finished cleaning up and then headed over to Man-O-War Cay to the mooring. We spent the rest of the day cleaning up, packing, had a nice dinner and some drinks and slept really soundly.
It was a really fun trip and some very interesting sailing. The Outbound 46 is a terrific blue water boat. I didn’t take a ton of pictures this trip, mostly because my phone was not charging well so I had to leave it turned off most of the time. I would have love to have some pictures of the breeze but would have needed a waterproof camera!
The next morning Ned took me to the ferry dock and I started the “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” trip back to Annapolis. After getting home about 10pm I woke up and jumped into the car with Lisa for the 18 hour (2 day) drive to Miami. Amusing that my flight went through Miami and my contingency had the trip taken a day or so longer was to get off there and have Lisa drive the boats solo, but fortunately for her I got home in time!
Team Pline 