Baltimore Harbour Single-handed Failure

The Cove, Baltimore

Yesterday ended with a beautiful red sunset, so theoretically I should be delighted. But the weather is turning for the worse. The forecast is reasonable enough to go for a sail, but it's a bit complicated to organise. The girls have an appointment with the hairdresser in the afternoon so I’ll realistically only get an hour of sailing, but I want to practice some more single handing.

Arriving at the boat, it feels much windier than it has been lately. I’m preparing the boat to leave, going through the list as quickly as I can. I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of time required to get the boat ready to sail, as that is always an issue with the girls. We head out to the boat and they are ready to go, but then it takes another 30 minutes before me and the boat are ready.

I’m concentrating on ticking things off my list when I notice something floating in the water next to the boat. Upon closer inspection I realise that it’s my boom crutch! I grab the boat hook and stretch over the side and am just able to hook it before it drifts away. Whew. I've been trying to get Eileen to read items off the list for me to check off, or to check off things herself but I just can’t seem to compress the procedure any further beyond 20 minutes. I think it’s related to the fact that the weather can get very bad even here in the harbour so it is important that things are done properly. I’m just not willing to take short-cuts on stuff which might come back to bite us later. This time I rowed out and prepared the boat myself, then went back in for Eileen when everything was ready.

I set up my temporary mooring bridle, start the engine, and slip the bridle. I motor us out from among the moored boats and find a bit of clear water. I tie off the tiller and point to windward under engine while I try to raise the mainsail. The bows blow off immediately, and it’s a real struggle to stay clear of the numerous dinghys, kayakers, and moored boats. I give up and ask Eileen to steer to windward while I hoist the sails. We have a good bit of sailing, reaching back and forth across the harbour. It’s already time to head back in, so I point towards the pier and go forward to take down the staysail. 

I get the idea that it might be a good idea to leave the mainsail up while picking up the mooring. I rig the bridle and prepare to pick up the mooring buoy from the cockpit. I come downwind of the buoy and turn sharply to windward, shifting the engine into neutral as we approach the buoy. Unfortunately I misjudged things a bit and cut power too soon. We don’t have enough way on to reach the buoy before the bows blow off. We start coming around with the main uncleated and soon I realise we are going to gybe. Eileen warns me that the boom is coming across, and I try to slow it down but it’s too late. I slow it down a bit but it still flies across with some speed. Thankfully nothing is damaged except my pride, but it’s another lesson learnt! I hadn’t thought about the possibility of an uncontrolled gybe if we missed the mooring buoy and had to go around again.

I sheet in the main tightly and approach the buoy again. This time I judge the drift better and I’m able to pick up the buoy and feed the bridle through the mooring loop. But a strong gust blows the bow off before we drift back on the bridle, which leaves us beam-on to the wind, hanging awkwardly from the mooring. I release the bridle, and just then as we start to circle back towards the channel the Sherkin ferry is about to enter the harbour and gives us a hoot of his horn, letting us know he is there and warning us not to cross his path. The shame!

I give up and ask Eileen to go forward with the boathook to pick up the mooring buoy, which she does first try. She helps me furl the main, but she has to get going to her appointment so I row her ashore and come back to finish tidying the boat myself. This was a very humbling experience after the previous successful single handed outing. This time there was a lot more wind, and more traffic as well. But pretty much nothing I did worked. 

Techniques that were fine in a feeble breeze are clearly not up to the job when the wind is gusting to force 4 or 5. I’m going to have to rethink some of this, and obviously it’s also a question of practice and experience. I found the actual sailing part to be relatively easy but the transitions were very difficult. Especially hoisting and dousing sails in a busy harbour with gusty wind. The one thing that sticks out is the need to be able to easily fix the tiller, go forward to sort something for a few seconds, and be able to take over steering again quickly. I’m going to have to try to rig some kind of tiller tamer or maybe even look into tiller pilots. Although there is a question of whether or not we have sufficient capacity to power a tiller pilot. 

I’m also pretty sure that I’ll be asking Tiernan to fit lazy jacks this winter, to ease handling of the mainsail. Treo already has a lot of string and I’ve been hesitant to add any more, especially due to windage, but the main is just too big to handle easily by myself. Especially on a lively boat like this which does not have a lot of momentum. In any case, I’ve got my work cut out for me.

13/07/2018

F3 gusting to F5 

R & E 

Baltimore Harbour