Storm of '99
july of '99. Vic had invited me to sail up the us coast with him to Nova Scotia fron the Chesapeake Bay. With little hesitation I accepted. I met him at his house and helped him with some things to get the place in "ship shape" for the year he anticipated to be gone. He planned to continue on to England alone from Canada and the plan was for me to find transport back home. After two days we got to the boat and worked on it for a couple of days to get it ready for the trip which could be a real test for any boat and crew. Projecting a week for the trip and the time spent getting ready made me a little nervous about one of my jobs. I ran home and took care of my buisiness. Now with a clear mind I was ready mentally for the adventure come what may. We cast away the lines and the boat was free of the dock and we were on our way for what I felt was going to be the journey of a lifetime. It was the first time I had been on the boat with it moving We waved to his girl friend and Vic said in a guarded voice,"Thank God I CAN BE free of that woman fo awhile " Marcy meant well but had in amotherly fashion oversaw the preperations at the end of which had said, "well I'm turning the boat over to Vic now it's in his hands" Down the Yoccomoco River we went , The English deisel effortlessly pushing us along. I of course was amazed with evererything. Watching te buoys as we passed them. "thats the Birthday Cake up there", said vic as the marker for the entrance to the river came in view It looked like it was the remnant of something much more substantial in the past , but it still served it's purpose well. Into the Potomac we motored and headed for the bay some 8 miles distant at this point. I put out a fishing line and soon caught a Spanish mackeral followed b 3 others I cleaned them as Vic prepared the stove. With a few pumps the alcahol stove was frying a fish that moments earlier was swimming free in the water. It was the most delicious thing I ever tasted. It had a discernable texture to it that was lost on fish I caught for home and laid in ice for a day. Vic fried one for the dog and all the crew was well satisfied. We rounded point lookout and left into the bay that would eventually take us to the Atlantic Ocean. The initial adrennaline charged excitement wore off and we got on with the routine necesary for the trip. I woke up at daylight the next day and Vic asked me to check the alternator belt on the engine and we determined the problem to be a broken engine mount We rigged up something and continued on motoring as there was no wind still on this hot July day. Vic, always the mentor showed me how to distinguish direction of the big ships that we were sharing th channel with by the patterns of their lights. There were many of those ships through the night and as Vic slept I was able to avoid collisions during my watch. We were taking 3 hr watches, one would navigate while the other slept The second day on the bay I awoke to find the engine off and Vic had the sails up. He sported a big grin as he told me he had shut down the noisy engine two hours earlier. He also informed me that my snoring rivaled the mechanical roar of the deisel beast. Sleepily aft and saw a bridge. Vic reading the question on my face answered with pride," that is the Chesapeake bay bridge. We will be in the Atlantic in a few minutes " What a feeling; soon I would be a Blue water sailor as we say! The weeks before whenever the phone rang at my house I would pick it up (after I knew my son would be talking to one of his friends ) and my son would say,"I got it" then in this game I had created I would ask, "is it Vic?" "no" "Oh ....We're going in the Atlantic you Know" When Vic told me were there I pulled ot my Gps(Global positioning satelite) and set a waypoint. Vic referred to it as the magic box. Here I was on the Atlantic and now with proof. The Atlantic was tremendous Sara Gamp was taking to it very well and you could see the satisfied look on the owner as busied himself trimming the sails for th wind of the day."The wind is from the Notheast" he said ""You know it is blowing right from the direction we want to go." The water was a deep blue and much cleaner looking than the Bay and the 2 rivers we had just travelled down. The swells were consistent and the boat was settling in for her tack towards the gulf stream 40 miles away. We'll tack to the stream and back I was told. "you know the ocean is like this 90 percent of the time" Vic informed me. Our tack took us near the stream and we headed back to the unseen US shore. This went on for 2 days. During one of my watches at 3 am I was bracing myself to the mast when I could hear waves. Waves? 15 miles out? Then there was a loud bang accompanied by a cascade of water. Vic suddenly appeared in the companionway, What have we hit ?" He looked back and aft of the boat was the phosphorescent glow of the churning waters ""good God those are breakers!" His british accent twice as intense as in usual conversation. "Let's come about " We undid the running rigging that Vic had trimmed to get the boat to self steer and a turn of the wheel and we were on our way to do battle with the breakers , hoping not to hit bottom as we did so. On we rushed like banshees in the dark night towards our possible doom. We rushed through the breakers, teeth clenched we heard the all too familiar bang as the wave slammed in the side of the boat spraying it's occupants with the cold salt water. We were through! Vic explained then that the ocean bottom there probably went from 200 ft to 10 to 30 ft and would cause the wave to break like that (later the chart revealed that the probable depth was 6 ft) back to sleep went Vic went and I finished my watch without further incident, happy as any wannabe blue water sailor could ever be. What an adventure.! Day light came and as custom had developed with the 2 member skeleton crew we were both up for the better part of the daylight hours. As the day progressed Vic pointed out the large swells behind ""we are going downwind and it doesn't even feel like half a gale out here because we are cutting the speed of the wind a lot withe the speed of the boat " The wind had picked up considerably as we were sailing shoreward on this long tack. I was standing watching the proceedings as the mizzen boom swung quickly to port, nearly braining me in the process. Vic kind of grinned and said he thought I knew not to stand there on a downwind tack like that. I got out my camera and took some pictures of the swells as Vic told me that they would look much calmer in the photograph. "Is it a Gale yet " I asked like a child anxious to see Diney world. "almost " Vic would say Soon though it was declared a gale by the fearless captain.I was asked to drop a sail whiich allowed the boat to slow down to a more controllable speed. The wind increased further....THe swells,plesantly caressing the boats bottom at the beginning of the ocean leg, were now imposing mountains of water all about us. I had put the camera away now and was taking orders from the captain. Shouting above the shrilling noise of the wind I was told to go forward and secure a line that had worked loose "CRAWL,DONT WALK" He roared. I understood, one wave rushing over the deck would wash this novice sailor overboard.As i crawled forward I was fascinated with the noise the wind made as it ripped through the rigging. It was like a high pitched whistle. The line turned out to be one of the halyards. Something that would have to be sorted out later. Vic, when he spoke with me , had a commanding tone to it that I knew was not to be taken lightly. I recognised that it was as I had read in one of my books that a captain of a ship was responsible for the safety of his crew. The gale roared up behind us. Vic telling me how it was still a good ride, was really grinning. The old boy was really enjoying this! We had finally trimmed down to just the small jib sail in the front. The first sail to come down was the main (it being the largest) next was the mizzen then the stay sail. The boat was still going at hull speed at over seven knots. Vic asked me about the magic box I had with me I told him I had set a waypoint on the first day on the ocean. W e were trying to think where I had set it and determined it to have been out from the bridge a bit and it may be a good place to point towards. The winds had picked up to higher speed at this point and we had to shout in each others ear to carry on such aconversation Vic was heading towards the entrance to the Bay. The rain had started at this point. I found it stinging as it hit my face and it was blowing in horrizontally. We determined the wind speed to be at least 50 mph. As we raced on towards the Virginia coast line the visibility was such that we could not see any buoys to navigate by. We knew we had to turn left to make the bridge entrance. "I don't know if we can make it. We may wind up on on those outer islands ahead......Clyde go below and get the lifejackets"Vic grinned that british way of his. I balanced myself down througgh the comppanionway and forward to where the life jackets were, pulled them out. I suddenly realised what he was saying. We are likely going to lose the boat and jump out and try to swim ahore. I burst into laughter..... that old rascal is so terribly British "Righto old chap cheerio " Iworked my way through the clutter on the floor and on deck still laughing. Vic had a puzzled look and I explained . We both had a good laugh. Sara Gamp made the turn out of the downwind tack fine and on we sped towards my waypoint. The bridge showed up through the rain I looked out at the chaotic waves. The wind was so fast it was wipiing the tops of them off and there was just foam spraying everywhere. The sweet taste of fresh water as the rain hit my face and trickled into my mouth that I eperienced earlier was now brackish tasting. The noise level had increased to a deafening whine. It was something I hoped to hear in the recent hurricane but it never got to that level. We were near the anchoring spot (I was amazed we were going to anchor in this chaos)and the jibsail had to be taken down. It was the last of the 4 sails up at this time. It had done a spectacular job to this point. Vic warned me to be careful. Pulling down the jib involves going out on the bow sprit (Vic calls it the widow maker) and wrestling the sail down. One problem is I could not use the harness, a device used to strap yourself to the boat. Balancing on two cables that brace the 5 ft. Beam I was being dipped into water as the boat heaved up an down in the waves. With no incident I was able to get it down and secured. Vic had me take the wheel he was going forward to ready the anchor. In a few minutes he came back and said he needed help forward. We lashed the wheel. He had trouble with the windlass. It would not hold as the chain played out . Normally as it comes out smething catches in the cogs and you can crank it out. Without it we had to hold the crank handle with brute force as the chain eased out dropping the anchor. When the anchor caught on the bottom sea bed the force was so great that the handle flew from my hands and came around and hit my arm.The both of us got it stopped And put the chain in its holder. We went below and Vic managed among the rocking of the ship to cook up some stew. We turned in for the night and the storm raged on outside. The anchor chain as it snubbed (the bow of the boat was rising and falling in the waves) would make a loud bang Little did I sleep through this All my clothes were wet shoes were wet. I looked at my arm and it had a nasty bruise on it Morning came and the storm had subsided we had coffee and vic went on deck. I started spreading some peanutbutter on a slice of bread. I remembered before I went on this trip all my friends were telling me to take prescribed medicine for seasickness. I yelled up to vic, "Do you think I'll get seasick Vic" He laughed, he had advised me before the trip not to worry. We had meal after meal in the rolling waves with no problem. He looked down in the cabin at me balancing myself trying to hit the bread with the knife, "I do'nt think there's any touble with that" The following days we limped our way back to the marina and made some repairs as we went. I went up the mast and untangled some of the lines thaat had gotten away from us. We were able to hoist the main again. Once out from Tangier Island we saw a Line squall, Some locals call them CChesapeake dusters, Vic said it would give us some wind. A squall can wreck a boat with it's fierce winds and waves it can produce in it's short existence. Three miles distant the long line of dark, ominous clouds was waiting to pounce and ravage our area of the bay The captain ordered AAll crew to don oilskins. As I sat on my box in the cokpit area. Thoughts of the previous days hardships were in my memory My main trophy, the nealy broken arm was getting stength back and the bruise was startting to fade. I was thinking maybe this was too much fun. After 2o minutes Vic declared the emergency off. That was fine with me. Vic back at norfolk had stated,"Iguess you won't want to head out with me in a couple weeks after all this " I looked at him with a surprised look and bellowed,"Are you Kidding, people pay big money for stuff like this! Vic had rrigged a temporary sail with a spare jib sail for 2 days till we fixed the main The last little way into the marina we risked using the motor(the jury rig to it had not been sufficient for the ocean) We docked the boat and talked to some of the other boaters there. We asked how the storm had been for them and were surprised to hear that the wind had barely stirred for days!
