I’m currently about 80% of the way done with a passage from Charleston, SC to Norfolk, VA. I left Charleston Thursday April 16th and should arrive in Norfolk in the morning of Sunday April 19th. So the total sail will be ~2.5days of sailing covering 3 nights assuming all goes well tonight.
It was a relatively last minute decision to do this sail, and I only seriously considered doing it two days before I departed. There were several factors driving this, but the primary one was that there appears to be a very nice weather window for making this sail. The biggest problem was that I didn’t want to do a 3 night passage solo, and getting good crew at the last minute is a fairly tall order. Fortunately I know a fair number of potential crew mates and I was lucky enough that one of them was able to make it on short notice.
In the past I’ve always done passages of this length with a 2 or 3 additional crew. However, after my experience doing a solo overnight using what I learned from Phil Haydon’s blog post I felt one crew would be sufficient. The idea would be to use Phil’s suggestion of taking 20min naps while on watch, and then get longer 2-3hour stretch’s of continues sleep while off watch to allow for REM sleep.
The conditions on this passage have covered a wide range of conditions. We left Charleston in Thursday evening and spent the first 12h heading fairly due east to catch the Gulf Stream current which would give us a speed boost when we turned north, and provide pleasant warm air temperatures in the mid 70s. On this first 12h stretch east the seas were a bit rough, but we had a strong beam reach with that allowed the sails to stabilize the rocking motion. Frankly it was a blast!
Once we reached the Gulf Stream in the middle of the night the wind shifted behind us due to us turning north and a shift in the wind. We were now going downwind in a 6ft sea following sea, which is a recipe for unpleasant rolling of the boat, which was exactly what we got for the next 12h or so. The seas state wouldn’t have been so unpleasant except that we were also going downwind, and when you are going downwind the sails don’t stabilize the rocking motion of the boat.
Around mid day Friday conditions started gradually improving due to the wind and sea state both slowly dropping. I would have preferred a change in wind direction, but by Friday morning I was happy for anything that reduced the amount of unpleasant rocking. The dropping wind speed reduce the sea state and the rocking, but unfortunately we needed to start motor sailing to keep up our speed.
By Saturday morning the the sea state was calm, but we needed to drop the sails and go just on the motor as we had no wind. The calm conditions motivated me to take a shower, shave, make blueberry muffins and prepare pizza dough for dinner later in the day. These are all things that one generally has little motivation to do in anything but a calm sea.
As of this writing Saturday night conditions have become ideal. The wind has picked back up, and we are sailing a beautiful broad reach. We are also now sheltered from bigger wind driven waves by the north side of Cape Hatteras, so the sea state has remained calm. I’m looking forward to these conditions to continue for the rest of the night.
The idea of taking 20min naps, waking to check everything is ok and then napping for 20min watch while and then gets 2-3 hours of continuous sleep off watch seems to work. I didn’t get any good sleep Thursday night due to the rolling conditions I described above, but frankly I doubt I would have been able to get much sleep if I could have spent the whole night in bed.
Friday night in the calmer conditions I was able to sleep 2h each time I was off watch and nap effectively on watch. I felt reasonably rested Saturday during the day, although not as much as a normal full night sleep. Given that I really didn’t sleep the night before, I’m pretty impressed with how awake I am.
We’ll be getting to Norfolk tomorrow morning, just a few hours ahead of some unpleasant weather that is coming it. Conditions are expected to be nice throughout the night and we are having a great sail. I’m actually going to change to a smaller front sail, not because of strong wind but because at this rate we’re going to get to the marina before they open in the morning.
Overall this has been an interesting new experience in multi day shorthanded sailing. I’m glad I did and had the experience despite the one unpleasant night overall I had fun. It’s definitely something I would do again.
I also want to take a moment to commend my excellent crew mate on this passage. Shorthanded sailing isn’t for everyone, but he was up for it and has enjoyed it as well. Most importantly I felt completely comfortable going down below to rest of watch while he took his watch.
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