Stuck inside of Charleston with the Rockland blues again

We had paid up at the Ocean Club marina through the end of March, so we stuck around there until the 30th, when a decent weather window presented itself for the trip north. The coast from about Hatteras northward had been seeing some pretty lousy weather. One gale after another had been passing through the region, and another was on the way. So, we set a course for Charleston, it being about as far as we could get before the next round of weather prohibited prudent travel.

The trip north was very fast, but it was pretty rugged going for the middle 12 hours or so. After a slow start, a strong ENE wind filled in, and Rocket Science lived up to her name, as is often the case. We had our best 8 hour run to date, covering over 100 miles in that period. If it had continued for 24 hours, we would have managed a 300 mile day! I’ve never heard of a cruising boat managing this number, and it would have been cool to pull it off. Close reaching at 10-14 knots is quite a rush. The boat’s just flying along, airborne some of the time, underwater at others. Waves come sluicing down the deck, generally washing down the windward side deck, and creating what we call the ‘Rocket River’ dumping across the winches at the back of the cockpit. Fortunately, it’s generally pretty dry at the wheel, with just the occasional big one tossing any amount over the dodger.

In the end, we did about 280 miles in 32 hours. Pretty good going. However, this kind of sailing is more than the pilot will handle, so we had to hand steer for the windier stretch. This was for 2 reasons. One, I was really digging seeing the speedo never drop below 10, and two, the furling line parted for our jib, so we sort of had only 2 choices, a full jib or no jib. Dropping the sail and installing a new furling line would have been a pain in the butt in the middle of the night anyway, and we weren’t carrying more sail than the boat would handle, so I decided to just let her run a bit more aggressively through the night than we typically do. Ordinarily, we would have been a bit more reefed down (we were before the line parted) just so that the pilot could manage, but it was not really in the cards in this case.

I can humbly report that my ass was thoroughly kicked after this quite physical sailing. Jenny’s too. I promised her a visit with the first decent chiropractor we found after her trick at the wheel.

Now, we’re sitting here in Charleston, wanting to carry on to Maine but we can’t. It looks like we’re going to be here for at least another week. The weather north of here is really remarkably awful. The next gale is supposed to intensify to force 11 offshore, with gusts of 74 knots and 10 meter seas according to the GRIB files. Next up is a strong northerly around Hatteras, making it impassible for us, then another one is to form and turn ugly on our route after that. There’s just one after another for the whole forecast period, not enough of a window is in sight for us to get around the cape and into at least the Chesapeake.

We do understand that it’s still the tail end of the winter storm season further north, and that we’re pretty early for the trip up there, but there typically is enough time between blows at this time of year that we should be able to squeak by without too much trauma.

Meanwhile, we’re making the best of our time here. We really like Charleston anyway, so it’s not a bad place to wait. We’re happily playing tourist, catching up on some boat chores, and generally just relaxing. There’s not much else to do. We made a nice little day trip to Sullivan’s island today, pictures to follow, thanks to Jenny’s outstanding photography.

So, here we sit, standing by.