Back to Homepage
 

      CRUISING / SAILING ADVENTURES

  

Read about different sailing and cruising adventures
that some of our members have enjoyed. 
We hope this section may provide you with information which
you can use for future cruising and sailing trips.
 

 

Sailing to the Virgin Islands
Lloyd Moore
November 5-14, 2007

I recently helped two friends, Morgan and Wilber Chapman, move their Beneteau 411 from Oriental to St. John, VI, from 5-14 November. We sailed the outside route, heading ESE from Beaufort to about Lo 65° W, south of Bermuda, before turning south for the islands. The theory is that by taking this route, you’ll avoid a long beat eastward when you get down to the islands.

The theory held up for us, and we had fair winds abaft of abeam the whole trip. We had some rough weather for about 24 hours while passing through a cold front that was slowly moving east.  At the height of the storm we encountered steady 30-40 knot winds, with gusts over 50.  Sailing under double-reefed main the boat handled well in spite of a large following sea, with breaking waves throughout the night and following morning.

It took exactly nine days from Beaufort Inlet to Francis Bay, St. John, about 1250 nm. Aside from beautiful sunrises and sunsets (including my first sighting of the “green flash”) we encountered a few whales, lots of dolphins, sailboats participating in the Caribbean 1500, and notably the Queen Mary 2.


THE
“BEST LAID PLANS” CRUISE

George and Lynn Stateham
and grandson Jack
While we, Lynn and George Stateham, usually sail months and thousands of miles at a time we recently took a short course at the school of hard knocks on what is a more typical cruise for members of FHYC.

 

A planned easy cruise with our Grandson through the Dismal swamp and up the Chesapeake and Potomac to Washington DC, turned into more time on the hard than in the water. Our experience caused us to call this the “Best Laid Plans” cruise and the trip report and pictures are at http://www.stateham.com/sunspotbaby/Best_Laid/Default.htm

Cruising the Bahamas

George and Lynn Stateham
38’ sailing Prout catamaran Sunspot Baby

George and Lynn recently returned from cruising the Bahamas through the winter aboard Sunspot Baby.

Leaving mid-December 05 and returning late May 06, they transited the ICW going south because of rough Atlantic winter conditions outside. After crossing from Key Biscayne to Nassau, they sailed through the Exumas and many of the far islands before turning north through Eleuthera and the Abacos.

This is the third year they have cruised the Bahamas and love the islands and especially the people. They report that they enjoy it more each time and are already planning the next trip south. According to George there are still lots of new places they want to visit and they have many favorites to which they plan to return.

There are detailed reports and photos on their web site.
 
A Trip to the Chesapeake
by Elliott Alterman


Ina, Elaine, Pete, Kathy, Don

Our discussions of planning for a multi-week trip to our old sailing grounds, the Chesapeake Bay, generated interest among some good sailing friends.  As it worked out, those friends were able to join us, in two stages, and enhance our trip tremendously.

Using the Gunkholer’s cruise as a springboard, we (Ina and I and boat dog Zoey) on Windfall, were joined by Kate and Ted Clark (with boat cats Mikey and Lucy) on Feather as we headed north. The weather was great as we worked our way up the ICW stopping at upper Pungo River for our first night.

Having been called by our other sailing friends, Elaine and Pete Fisher on Terabithia, we had another leisurely sail back to Jackson Creek to join them. Sadly, Feather had to head back home but we had the pleasure of the company of Pete and Elaine for the rest of the trip.

Read more about this trip to the Chesapeake with lots more pictures.  Click here
 
A slow boat tale
by
Thrum Cap

(a "tongue in cheek" log of the Northern Cruise of FHYC in 2005)

The cruise was scheduled to start on Saturday, May 14 with a 62 mile run all the way to Downy Creek Marina.  A number of boats decided to start a day early and make this long run in two days.  They did this despite the warning from the catamaran man that starting a voyage on Friday was not a good idea and starting on Friday the 13th was downright foolish.   Well did they learn a thing or two!  By the time they got to Oriental, they had made about 18 vertical bouncing miles as well as 18 horizontal miles.  So there they stayed and started again on Saturday as they were supposed to. But with their early start they missed the brisk southerly wind that wafted my friend, K. T. Amaran, the 62 miles from Fairfield Harbor in seven and a half hours.

Read more about the Northern Cruise of 2005.  Click here.