Sailing to and From Solomons
Jack, your question regarding the sailing time to Solomons is a good one. I'm not really sure. I've done two round trips, both in September. I have an annual work conference in Solomons and have done the trip for the past two years. The first trip down in 2003 took me about nine hours--six hours of sailing and three hours of motoring. The trip back took me 8.5 hours--three hours of sailing and 5.5 hours of motoring. The motoring was solely due to no wind. The trip this year took about 8 hours down, and I had to motor for about six hours; there was absolutely no wind until I got to Cove Point. The trip back this year, on Friday, September 17 in SE winds at 25-30 knots (with gusts) from Ivan, took about 6.75 hours. I sailed for about half and motored for half. I could have sailed the whole thing in about the same time, but the entire bay was under a tornado watch and tornados were touching down all over to the west of the bay, and I decided to motor closer to the Western Shore in case I had to duck in quickly to a port area. At one point I was doing 8.5 knots under reefed sails, and was over seven knots the entire time under power. I'd say that eight hours would be a typical time from Annapolis to Solomons.
