PIRATES CruiseThis is a log of the PIRATES Cruise, Ocracoke, NC in 2002. This story was also published in Multhulls Magazine in 2003.
(scroll down for more story and pictures - click the photos for large version!)
A WINDRIDER 17 MAIDEN VOYAGE
or "4 Days in a Plastic Trimaran"
(click on any of the pictures below for a bigger one!)
This was the innaugural P.I.R.A.T.E.S. (Pamlico Intracoastal Regatta And Trailer Sailor) Festival trip which included nearly 20 trailer sailors with monohulls and catamarans and also with an additional group of seven Windrider trimarans that were added at the last minute. The organized route was from the Cedar Island, NC public boat ramp to Ocracoke, NC on Friday, daysailing on Saturday, and returning to Cedar Island on Sunday.
My Windrider was only 3 weeks old, and had never even been wet. I had spent the last 2 weeks making changes and getting everything ready for the "cruise". This included a complete spinnaker rig that I never got to use!
Thursday
Weather: Wind generally out of the SE at 10-15. Rainy.
Route Miles Covered: 22Most of the entire PIRATES group was planning to meet at Cedar Island and make the trip to Ocracoke from there. One other boat and myself decided to add an extra day to the trip and sail from Oriental to Cedar Island the day before the mass "exodus".
I put in at the very nice public ramp in Oriental at around 0800. It was lightly raining off and on while I set up the boat. Everything went fairly smooth and I was in the boat and ready to go by 0830. I knew I was in for some interesting times on this maiden voyage when, as I sheeted in to pull away from the ramp, the Windrider took off at 10 knots!
All during the day toward Cedar Island, the wind was gusty and thunderstorms rolled by on all sides of me. I had to get out of the cockpit and put the reef in the main, only to take it out again 15 minutes later. Rain cells (with no thunder or lightning) would pass ahead, then behind, then to port. I knew one of them had to get me eventually. The "one-size-fits-all" kayak sprayskirt I brought fit nicely and was easy to put on and take off as the rains came and went.
I had to round a large marsh area heading NE and then turn to the SE to get to the meeting place where all of the other boats would be putting in at the Cedar Island public ramp. It took only about an hour and half to get to the turning point. Then it was dead into the wind the rest of the way.
At one point rounding the marsh, I saw a light flash at about the water level in the distance. I looked at the chart and didn't see any beacon listed for that area. I counted to see how long it would be before the next blink of the light so I could find it on the chart, but there was none. A few seconds later a military jet came screaming over my head only a few hundred feet off the water. I now knew what the flash was. The northern tip of this marsh is marked as RESTRICTED on the charts, as it is a practice bombing area for the military. I had visions of my tiny boat in all of that "bombing practice" water and some pilot saying, "hey, Jimmy, watch this!" I kept my eyes wide open all the way around the marsh.
As I finished rounding the marsh and headed SE, I had to begin experimenting with trying to "coax" the boat to make significant progress upwind. I tried lots of different things but could not make any more than 55 degrees or so towards the true wind direction. Part of the problem, I think, was the rigging being new and it had begun stretching - the forestay/jib had quite a bit of sag it. Towards the end of my experimenting, I held onto a port tack for a very long time until I was right up next to the beach, I then tacked and had a little better wind angle due to the wind running along just off of the shore a little bit.
As I got near the breakwater where the public ramp was, 3 dolphins began swimming all around the boat! There were several gill nets nearby and they were probably having dinner. It is amazing (and a little bit scary) how big these animals look when you are sitting only 8 inches above the water! I thought to myself that this was a pretty good end to a first day on the water.
I pulled the boat right up on the beach. Many of the other PIRATES had begun to arrive and I went around talking with them and looking at boats for some time. We had a good dinner at the little motel by the ramp, and I retired to my boat and setup up my mesh tent and tarp for the night.
Sleeping in the main hull was really very comfortable except for the 80 degree LOW temperature for the night and the fact that I had made sure I swooped up and captured at least 1000 mosquitoes when I pulled the mesh cover down over the hatch. On a cool night with no bugs, I would have slept like a baby.
It was a very good first day in that I got a good feel for the boat in a variety of conditions and tacking angles.
Friday
Weather: Wind generally out of the SSE at 20-25. Sunny. Small craft advisory for the Pamlico Sound.
Route Miles Covered: 20
Friday dawned a nice deep red/orange. What was that saying again? Hmmm. Never mind, I'll think of it later......
A small meeting was held at 0730 with all of the boats and, given the weather forecast, several skippers opted to trailer over to Ocracoke on the ferry (a smart move). Several others turned back from around a half mile out due to the conditions. Some of the smaller cruising boats were just not made to be out in those conditions. Still others were lacking enough crew to help with the "activities" required on a small boat when the wind and water are up.
Seeing all of these prudent sailors got me a bit worried about going ahead, but I was determined to try the boat out - even if I had to turn back later myself. I put the reef in the mainsail and set off with main and jib. The water had 1 to 2 ft chop and the ride was not too wet (yet). Once away from the lee of Cedar Island, though, the excitement level picked up considerably. What a ride!!!
The Windrider is designed to accommodate 2 people easily and a bunch of gear. I only had my small-ish self and a little gear, so it was basically running flat out. Several times I had the windward ama out of the water and most of the center hull as well!
I probably would have kept the jib rolled up or maybe not even have gone out at all if I had been on an entirely solo trip. The fact that all of these other really great people (nearly 20 boats!) were all around, made me feel a little more comfortable experimenting with, and pushing my limited skills and knowledge with the Windrider.
I wet my pants several times during the first half hour or so, but after I got used to the boat and the stability of it, things became really, really fun! The center hull would lift up on a small wave, and before it had a chance to fall into the dip behind, a gust of wind would come up and the whole boat would shoot off the top of the wave like a rocket (or so it felt). As a big(ger) boat sailor, I was not used to this kind of acceleration. It was obvious, though, that these conditions were demanding, but not necessarily "over the top" for the Windrider.
Just as I got near Nine Foot Shoal Channel, I saw some a group of fishingnet sticks to port, and another set to starboard. "I'll just go right between them!", I thought. There was plenty of room. As I got closer, I noticed the floats from a gill net stretching all the way between the two batches of sticks (a good 500yards)! I was barreling along and it was too late to do much, but I turned into the wind to slow down. I came up along side the long net and thought, "Oh, no. Now I am going to have to get in the water and untangle everything after I get stuck here." Well, it didn't happen! Just as I came alongside, some of the waves from the chop picked up the leeward ama lifted it over the net and floats! Then, pretty as you please, 1-2-3 with subsequent waves, I just "stepped over" the nets one hull at a time! Turned back onto a reach again and took off! It couldn't have been orchestrated any better!
Due to incoming tidal currents and a gradual wind shift during the day, I completely missed laying the entrance to Silver Lake at Ocracoke on my first shot. Had I anticipated this, a small correction early on would have prevented the long tacks back, straight into the 20 knot wind to make the entrance. Lesson learned. I guess I was too busy wiping the grin off my face.
I averaged 11.2 knots of boat speed for over 2 hours and max speed for the day was 14.2 knots!! This was definitely a new thing for me. My right hand was nearly blistered from the "death grip" I kept on the mainsheet the whole time!
When I got into the harbor, the other (experienced) Windrider guys told me that I probably would never see conditions like that again for some time. Apparently, the conditions, wind speed, direction, and water, were absolutely perfect for the Windrider's best performance. I know now what to expect!
A super PIRATES cookout (lots of RED meat) at the Anchorage Inn and some great costumes and pirate gear topped off a really great day of sailing.
Saturday
Weather: Wind generally out of the ENE at 5-10. Sunny.
Route Miles Covered: 4 out, 4 backDaysailing day. About 5 of the windriders and one of the monohulls took a daysail over to Portsmouth Island. The wind was very light in anticipation of a cold front coming through the area late in the afternoon.
The Windriders were able to make around 3-3.5 knots close reaching in the minimal wind. We arrived at Portsmouth Island after skidding across several of the constantly moving sandy shoals around the area.
There was a small dock to tie up to and we debarked there.
As we were getting off of our boats, a man came up the dock from the island in what looked like a full HAZMAT suit! I thought, "Oh, great, all that effort to get here, and the place is contaminated!" As he got closer, though, you could see that it was an all-over mosquito suit complete with head gear! He didn't have to tell us that the mosquitoes were bad.
He said we should definitely go see the old store, the post office, and the church. He said that he doubted that we would "make it" all the way to the lifesaving station, but that it was worth seeing. We bathed in bug spray and brought the can with us. It was a good thing we did! We ended up several times "fogging" the path ahead so we could keep walking.
We never made it to the lifesaving station as predicted. The blood loss was starting to take its toll.
On the return trip, it was evident that the cold (cool) front was on its way. The clouds along the front were visible a few miles west. I thought we had plenty of time to get back before the front arrived. The wind was light to non-existent for the first 20 minutes. And then.... WHAM! 25-30 knots right on the nose! I very much underestimated how far out AHEAD of the front the high winds would extend!
I was stuck with my full main up, and with those winds, there was no way I was going to crawl forward to try to reef. I was about 2 miles from the Silver Lake entrance to Ocracoke, so I had to grin and bear it. I put on the dinghy smock and sprayskirt, dumped most of the wind from the sail, and tried to point as high as I could. I had to spill so much wind from the sail that only about a third of the sail was providing any power. The winds never slowed down - no gusts, just a constant blow.
About an hour and a half later I made it into Silver Lake --- a wet rag.
We had a fantastic group dinner at the Pelican restaurant with awards and the revealing of the "buried treasure"
The winds blew all night.
Sunday
Weather: Wind out of the NE at 15-20. Partly Cloudy/Sunny.
Route Miles Covered: 41I wanted to leave really early in the morning since I would not be going back to Cedar Island with the rest of the group. I had 40 miles to cover all the way back to Oriental. I listened to the weather forecast when I got up and thought - O.K., 15-20 from dead astern, that should be no trouble at all.
What I had forgotten was what the Pamlico sound can "serve up" after an entire night of blowing 25 knots. There were 3-4 foot choppy waves everywhere, and every now and then a 5-footer would roll up. 5 foot waves are hard to imagine with only 8-12 feet of water depth in the entire sound!
I left out with several of the monohulls who had a much more comfortable time than I did coming out of the rolling channel.
It was not a very comfortable ride downwind in that chop. I could either put up a lot of sail and try to push hard just over the tops of the waves, or slow way down and ride up and down each one over a much longer period. Neither option was perfect. Time to experiment.
With the wind astern, the boat would loose some drive going up and down the waves and the whole rig would go SLAM! as either the wind caught back into the sails or the boat dropped down into a trough. The problem was that the waves were so close together that the entire boat didn't fit down in the troughs! Part of the boat would drop down into the dip and another part would catch on the top of the next wave and again, SLAM! Note to self: "add seat belt to aft cockpit"
I began to worry a bit about most of the rig being bedded in plastic! I hoped that there was enough metal backing all of those bolts up!
I cracked off a bit from dead downwind. The boatspeed picked up and it rode a little better over the choppy waves.
As I approached Brant Is. Shoal, the waves got much bigger. The occasional 5-footer was not so occasional now. The 8-12 feet of water was being pushed up onto a 3-4 foot shoal that is about a quarter of a mile wide. I remember saying to myself, "O.K., I'm ready to get off of this ride, now".
About halfway across the shoal, I began hearing a "CHING" sound every time I slammed down after a wave. CHING! There it was again. I surveyed the boat and found that the aft-most shroud bridle bolt on the port side had backed out three quarters of an inch! The bolt held a tang that the shroud was shackled to. The tang that held the shroud was riding up and down on the bolt shaft, unscrewing it a tiny bit at a time. I thought about whether or not it would hold the rest of the way and decided that there must only be a quarter of an inch left threaded into the ama plate and it wouldn't be long for that to finish unscrewing and come out. If that happened, I guessed the whole rig would come down on top of me.
I knew I had a pair of pliers somewhere in my stuff under the forward hatch that I could probably screw the bolt back in with, but I didn't relish the thought of pulling the hatch cover off and digging around in there while the boat jockeyed around in the waves. Then I remembered what years of "wasting my time" reading sailing forums and bulletin boards on the web had taught me. With a calm that really surprised me, I set about dealing with my problem.
I calmly hove-to, making sure that the loose bolt ended up on the downwind side of the boat so that it was not under tension. I grabbed a line from behind the cockpit seat that I had used as a dockline and proceeded to climb out onto the trampoline. I tied a "trucker's hitch" in the line, threading it through the shroud's bridle ring and then down to the arm the held the ama. I went around and through 2 or 3 times to get enough purchase on the line and then pulled hard until all of the slack was gone and the rig was now held down with the line. I was now able to turn the bolt with my fingers just to get it back in to the plate a little further. The tang was now still.
I was surprised at how well the Windrider hove-to. It didn't seesaw or yaw around at all. It sat there quietly (except for the waves bouncing around) and waited for
me to finish.
Climbing back into the cockpit, I bore off and was back on my way - again, really surprised at my total composure. It really wasn't like me at all.
I learned quite a bit on the remainder of the trip back. At first I was constantly looking for "low-spots" in the waves and aimed for them to lessen the boat trying to surf down them and possibly broach. After being caught by surprise a couple of times, however, I found that the boat was quite remarkable surfing down the front of the 4 and 5-footers. The rudder was a little touchy while surfing, but it was definitely manageable. In fact, it nearly eliminated the slamming of the boat when it happened. So after a while I actually started LOOKING for the big ones to surf down. I didn't realize it until I got almost all the way back, but my GPS now had a max speed of 19.5 knots!!!! Now THAT's surfing!
The waves were close enough together that there wasn't much danger of burying the bow. By the time the boat was "up to speed" and being pushed down into a trough, the bow began rising onto the back of the next wave.
After entering the Neuse, things calmed down a lot and I relaxed for the last 10 miles to Oriental. Just outside the Oriental channel, I sailed right through a regatta as the finishing gun sounded. I got quite a few stares in my plastic boat running through there at 9 knots.
I got back to the boat ramp in good time and was packed up and on the road by 1500.
Here is the actual track log downloaded from my GPS:
(click for a larger picture)
I hardly remember the drive back as I spent most of the 3 hours reflecting on what a great weekend it was!
Many thanks to Doug Bernstein, the Windrider folks, Norbanks Sailing, and a whole bunch of great trailer sailors for getting this all put together. I had a great time. Doug's recap of the 2002 trip can be found here.
I guess I need to start getting ready for next year………
