Bristol Channel Cutter Elizabeth

So what could be my new engine issue? Is the starter fried?  With all that smoke…how close did I come to having a fire aboard? Immediatly after dropping the hook, I dug into the engine room to begin troubleshooting. Visual inspection of starter and ignition wires indicated everything was OK. No melted wires. I crawled back a bit further to where the starting battery perched. The entire engine room smelled like ‘burning electricity’, so it was hard to determine exactly where the smell originated. But upon inspection of the battery, there was no doubt in my mind where the odor came from. The negative terminal had completely melted! It looked like ‘Hot Liquid Magma’ at the terminal. Internal short I guess. I talked with a few friends about possible issues. Together we traced my charging circuit and tested to make sure the starting battery was getting a proper charge. All checked out OK. I have an Ample Power Next Step Regulator coupled with their Eliminator to charge a 2nd battery bank.

The simple starter test: I swapped the starting circuit Hella key switch, and fired up the engine using the House Bank. Starter appears to be OK. Engines running. No meltdowns… yet. So, out with the old battery. Let’s just say, moving the Group 31 from its perch is a royal bitch; sweat and curses come standard.

I loaded the small boat with my bike and the dead battery, bound for West Marine to find a replacement. I pulled up to Daphne to get Teresa and her bike. Now, Charleston Harbor is actually a river, the Ashley River. At max flood/ebb, the current rips at about 4 knots. All the boats in the harbor sit in different directions depending on their hull shape. Some are in harmony with the wind direction, others follow the flow of the current. This day, the wind and current opposed one another and the chop was annoying to say the least.

Making room for Teresa’s bike, I moved the battery and my Dahon to the center. All in a matter of seconds, she handed me her bike, the dink rocked from the large wake kicked up by a powerboat speeding through the nearby ICW, the painter jerked, I lost my balance - which was compounded by stepping through a crack in the floor, and the dink began filling with water! I thought I could recover it, but nope, it was too late, I was getting wet, the bike was in my hand. I let go, the dink flipped over and I swam away, thinking, “Damn there goes another phone!”  Teresa yelled, “It’s OK, It’s OK. Get the bike, it’s stuck on the dink! Quick!” The bikes! In my state of shock, I didn’t even realize the bikes would be gone. With hope, I swam to the dink, but there was no bike - it was the outboard motor lower unit, triggering another realization… the outboard was submerged.  My phone, the outboard, 2 bikes, chain, lock, oarlocks - sunk in 30′ of water with a 3 knot current. Damn. Two dinghies arrived quickly to help out. Jim from Starbound, and another fellow, who’s name I didn’t catch, but his boats name was Timrod. We righted the dink and pumped her out, retrieved the oars, got a GPS fix, and took a deep breath.

Having sunk an outboard before, I knew if I was going to save this outboard, that was the first thing I had to attend to. I got the outboard to the Mega Dock, hosed her off, flushed the oil, sprayed the cylinders, and cleaned out the carb. She’s running just fine - for now. Go Team!

We found a diver through the “I know a guy who knows a guy who’s knows a guy” network. He came down after he got off work in two halves: half in the bag and with half a tank of air. Needless to say, finding our bikes that day was fruitless. The next day another diver came down, and again had no luck finding the bikes. 30′ of murky water and  3-4 knots of current didn’t help the situation. We decided to give up the search, and move on. It was MORE than time to leave Charleston.

Charleston was the original destination for this trip. Most everyone I spoke to about Charleston said something to the effect of…”Oh, what a great city, it’s a good walking town, fabulous history, very cosmopolitan, you’ll love it, and they even have a french quarter”. I figured I’d spend the winter in Charleston…should be warmer than Martha’s Vineyard at least. When we arrived, I nostalgically put my sail covers on one last time and sadly wrote in the logbook, “1310: Trips over, anchored in Charleston with 120′ of chain in 25′ of water, M.E. secure @ 1174 hrs”.

The best thing I found in Charleston was the candy shop with free praline & candied-pecan samples. We stopped by there everyday for a free snack. We also got a free carriage ride, and free pizza lunch by suffering through a presentation about Festiva Vacations… 3 hrs later, they gave us vouchers for $130 worth of food and carriage rides. Eh, not bad.

We spent a week getting a feel for our new home, applying for a few jobs, seeing an old high school pal, and taking in the sights. But, it became clear, Charleston wasn’t the place to spend a winter. After coming all this way, I realized, Charleston is just too cold and there’s no work. Winter is the ’slow season’, just like Martha’s Vineyard. Clearly, we hadn’t gone far enough south.

We did however, have a fantastic time with our friends Chad and Nicole aboard Sabbatical, and Maxwell and Jen aboard Anastasia. We all celebrated Thanksgiving aboard Anastasia, a Baba 35. We enjoyed a wonderful meal to which we all brought something, and felt the warmth of family so far from home this time.

Seven days after we arrived, with a good weather window, fuel and water tanks pressed up, we passed Fort Sumter again, this time bound for sea. The winds were perfect, 15 kts from the NE, but I needed a little help fetching the southern breakwater. I went to fire up the Main Engine, it barely turned over, as if the battery was dead. Then suddenly I smelled that unmistakable smell of “burning electricity”. The smoke followed. Then, after I stopped pushing the start button, the engine kept trying to start. It would slowly turn over. I even removed the key from the ignition, but still, that starter, down on it’s knees, bleeding, kept trying to get that engine running. It was freaking me out actually…like the ghost of Yanmar’s Past. A few rotations later, it breathed its final breath and the pathetic cranking ceased.

There I was being set onto the breakwater without an engine, bound for sea to make the overnight passage to Florida. Without much thought, I tacked round and headed back to Charleston reluctantly. Past Ft. Sumter again. Soon the wind petered-out of course, and I was faced with the decision to either anchor and wait for the favorable current to carry me back in or get a tow from Daphne. I took a tow.

Re-anchored in the swift current of Ashley River near our newest  friends aboard an AWESOME wooden replica of Joshua Sluocum’s Spray, Starbound, we began “Charleston Part II”.

It’s been weeks of trudging our way south through the dismal ICW. The engine hours topped the 1000 mark and the associated fuel costs toppled the budget. The thought of open ocean and even just a short offshore run made Elizabeth and I very excited.

Beaufort, North Carolina offered us a chance to spread our tanbark wings and sail a single, unobstructed course from Morse Alpha to Morse Alpha. The run: Beaufort, NC to Wrightsville Beach, NC. Typically, it’s the first outside run for many of the sailboats making this southbound trip each year. It’s roughly a 70 mile trip, anchor to anchor.

The plan: Haul back at 0500 from Beaufort, drop the hook at 1900 in Wrightsville Beach. 14 hours at 5 knots…pretty ambitious. Sailing plans are the exact opposite of Swiss watches… they are never precise, and always fail. November days are short and darkness dominates this time of year. Translation: a dark departure and a dark arrival.

Leaving Beaufort in the early morning light and fog produced a beautiful view of Cape Lookout to port. Beaufort is a well marked channel, but strong current against us made it slightly tricky that morning. We were pushed Eastward towards Shackleford Point and only a massive course correction would compensate. Just as we cleared G “7″, the sun broke through and the winds filled in - a sweet 12 knot breeze from the Northeast, putting it on our starboard quarter. We both enjoyed the gentle lift of the ocean swells. With the Monitor engaged and steering well, I was able to get a few whipping projects done and enjoy the day.

The day wore on and the winds increased. By dusk it was blowing a steady 17-20 knots, and the seas had built to 4 or 5 feet. No longer did the Monitor steer my course easily. The bronze gears have been wearing down slowly over time and I think they have come to the end of their serviceable life. They are about the only parts on the Monitor I didn’t replace during my rebuild this past summer. Typical.

Around 1930, we approached the entrance to Wrighstville Beach - Masonboro Inlet. The seas were rather ‘pushy’ and the wind was cold. Despite having doused the mains’l a few miles back and running my engine in reverse to try and slow down, I ended up leading our 3 boat convoy: Daphne and Sabbatical were a few miles behind me, so I had won the prize of going in first. Damn this fast boat of mine!

The Mo (A) light was dim, but clearly recognizable by it’s distinct pattern (- —). Sailing under jib alone at 6 knots, with tiller between my legs, spotlight in one hand, binoculars in the other, VHF radio under my toes, and chart between my teeth I sped on towards this inlet beneath a pitch black sky. The chart reads: Masonboro Inlet (see note B). With one eyeball watching for the submerged breakwater, the other eyeball wandered around the chart looking frantically for this note B thing. Aha!

“Well shit, I hope these buoys are on station” I thought, because that’s all I got to go with here. “Hope I don’t miss any buoys, or skip a dog leg (an unexpected turn in the channel)!” There were lit red buoys exhibiting distinct light patterns, but without a chart to reference their position it was difficult to know which buoy to head for first. At this point I threw up my hands, chose the brightest red flash I could see and just went for it. Not much you can do, except pray. The submerged breakwater didn’t diffuse the waves of course, so even inside the inlet I was rolling nearly gunwale to gunwale. Too rough to use binoculars. Unlit green buoys  whispered “boo” like a ghost close on my port side… too close actually. I clutched my radio, hailed Daphne, “Watch Out For Unlit Greens!” and swung the tiller over.

Once past the first red buoy, the channel became more recognizable and the path to safety was in sight. But that last red buoy, so far to port, so close to the southern breakwater… is that really on station? Can I trust it? Will it put me aground when my keel drops down between these swells? Spotlight on the breakwater, course as close to the red as possible…Oof, is this really worth it I wondered???  …YES! And what a rush it was, in fact.

Inside the last red and making way towards the ‘green on a stick’, with the swell gone flat, I lowered my jib safely and waited for the rest of my convoy to play the game. It was sorta like a roller coaster ride where you scream the entire ride in horror, only to get off and say, “That was fun, let’s do it again!”

It’s been 7 weeks since I left Martha’s Vineyard. I’ve taken 3 showers. That’s 49:3. I do love a good pie chart, but not sure how to graphically display this data, perhaps this will do…

The last shower I took has a cool little story that goes with it…

Teresa and I rafted up in Hampton, VA for our first night there. The winds were light, the anchorage was well protected from wakes, but it was small and crowded. So it made good sense to raft up, in the name of “anchorage space conservation”. The second night however, winds were forecasted to increase to 25 knots… a great reason to anchor separately. After a few boats had left for the day, I dropped my anchor a few hundred feet to the West. Once I was secure, we went ashore to drop off my alternator and get me a new phone. I have a bad habit of using my phone in the rain, and well, it got really wet this time, and died a slow, vibrating death.

The next morning, while eating my breakfast and checking my email I got a comment on the blog from snoodletime:

When I woke up this morning, I saw your boat anchored in Hampton Creek.  I recognized the bow as that was all I could see from my window.  Curious as I am, I had to walk down the dock to see if it was really you.  Sure enough, I could see you and Teresa too. I’ve quietly read your adventures and it sure was nice to actually see your boats.

A little while later, after a quick email exchange and a phone call we met up with Steve, humbly accepted his offer of dock, electricity, shower, a ride to town to collect my repaired alternator, and an invitation to dinner with his sailing friends that night, who put on a feast I couldn’t believe. What an amazing guy! What a fantastic coincidence! What incredible hospitality! Steve showed me the small gap between the buildings and the trees through which he saw the sliver of my bow… just incredible he recognized her.  Thanks for everything Steve!

Here’s a quick breakdown of my expenses for the first month of being underway. Groceries dominate… I’m pretty sure it’s due to these particular cookies I buy, to use in a dessert I make, to bring to social boat gatherings. They cost $5 a box. I buy alot of boxes. Yup, I’m getting fat. In addition, the first month groceries figure includes alot of staples, that will last many months. Fuel is a necessary evil when you do the intracoastal waterway. The trip north next spring will be offshore and my wallet is looking forward to it already. Eating out includes the occasional coffee/treat and two nice dinners: one Thai dinner with my aunt and uncle, and one awesome All You Can Eat Crab Feast with Travis and Joanne. When in Maryland, one MUST go for crabs. Galley gear is non-skid plates and mugs, neither of which I had before leaving. Sailing gear is a logbook… yup, a waste of money. Yanmar is actually lube oil… should that go under fuel? Tools is a deck cap opener.

This cruising expense report  doesn’t include my other “grown-up” expenses like: cell phone, data plan, boat payment, boat insurance, car insurance, health insurance etc…

I suspect November’s expenses will be alot less…

Cabbage is great aboard a boat… seems to last forever. I bought one in Martha’s Vineyard Sept 28th. I just got around to using it this week. I never really knew what to do with it until now. I made up my own cole slaw recipe. Drippy, deli-style coleslaw is not my thing; but spicy, nutty coleslaw is. Here’s my new recipe… The Old Bay was courtesy of my friend Travis.

Elizabeth’s Spicy Nutty ColeSlaw
(amounts are very, very approx.)

1 head green cabbage
3/4 cup mayo
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp Old Bay
some raisins
some almonds, roasted then chopped
some chopped fresh cilantro

For as long as I can remember, the main belt has been spewing black dust all over the engine room. Along with the dust came an odor of burning rubber. Unpleasant. Annoying. Instead of really solving the problem, I masked it by installing a heavy duty belt from NAPA. This solved the burning rubber smell, but the dust continued to settle - all over everything - especially the alternator.

The other morning leaving Deltaville under power, I heard a loud “schnapp”, and wondered what I had just hit! I throttled back and looked over the side, but no floating log appeared. I smelled rubber, and saw smoke below. Immediately, I shut down the engine, and dropped the hook.

Upon opening the engine compartment, I saw the problem - the old broken belt trick. Pretty sneaky sis. No big deal, I have 2 or 3 spares. But I wondered why-oh-why that heavy duty belt broke.

I began monitoring the belt temperature with my infrared thermometer. To my surprise the belt temperature reached 350º quite quickly, and when I throttled up to 2400 rpm, the belt temperature rose above 450º. Concurrently, I noticed the alternator output had dropped to nearly nill… 5 amps plus or minus 2. Bad regulator? Too much belt dust build up on the windings? Overheating caused a short circuit? Oh bother.

Upon removal of the alternator, I saw, by spinning the pulley, that the shaft wasn’t straight, such that the pulley wobbled. So much so, that on one side, the fan blades nearly scraped the front body of the alternator. Clearly this was the cause of my overheating, dust-producing belt issues.

Fortunately, in Hampton VA, there was, close by, an alternator/starter repair shop by the name of Dixie. I hopped on my Dahon, and peddled my poor alternator over for a rebuild to the tune of $140, with the promise of it being returned to me in 23.5 hours. Not bad.

The following day - installation success. No more dust, plenty of power (amps), and normal belt temperatures. Cleanliness is next to Godliness when it comes to alternators. Keep ‘em clean, keep ‘em straight. For the record, this alternator is a Max Amp 137/116 amp alternator made by Ample Power on a Yanmar 3GM30 with a single V-belt.

So many things happen out here… but alot of the time is the same old: sailing, motoring, raising sails, dropping sails, hauling the anchor, setting the anchor, washing dishes, making dinner, eating  too many cookies, washing more dishes, naviguessing, sleeping, working, spending money I don’t have, etc etc etc…

Having a career that is transportable like graphic design has its pros and cons. On one hand I’m out here doing it NOW. Not waiting, saving, suffering through another day at the office dreaming of a different life. But I’m not out here, living the carefree cruising life either. I work along the way. I work while I sail when conditions permit. I work at anchor. I work in the early morning before I haul back, I work late at night after a full days sail. I work whenever I can fit in a few minutes behind this wretched machine. I enjoy the challenge of it all I suppose. But no one else out here cruising is working. They are all retired, or on sabbatical, like our friends Chad and Nicole, who saved up some money, enough for 1-2 years and are out here - just cruising. Must be nice.

The Chesapeake is over. We’re onto the our third Chartkit already. Our first month has come and gone, we’re into week 6 now. I’ve changed the oil once, and filled my diesel tank twice. I’ve spent approx. $800 on cruising related items: food, fuel, entertainment, and parts during this first month. Is this the cost of cruising?

It’s an interesting life. Right now, my alternator is ashore being repaired. I broke a belt the other day, and so began watching the temperature at the alternator pulley very closely. The temperature ranges from 350-425ºF. The charging amperage dropped to anywhere between  0 and 8 amps. Something is drastically wrong here. My batteries are at 11.6 volts tonight, with no way to charge them. Again, something is drastically wrong here. This months budget is shot already… new alternator, new batteries, new cell phone — oh did I forget to mention that broke too? I love sailing.

We spent 5 (five, fife, fiver) days in Atlantic City, NJ holed up in our boats, waiting out 2 low pressure systems that rolled through back-to-back, producing relentless winds of 25-35kts and steady driving rain. I managed to keep busy with work and barely minded the downtime. As my fresh food supplies dwindled, I began using my reserves… the food in the back of the cubbards I never ever touch, because, well, It’s really not my favorite, or I don’t really know what to do with it. Lentils fall into this category. But I managed to heat some split orange lentils and enjoy them tremendously, quite surprisingly. Our other big discovery in Atlantic City was Redbox, the one dollar video rental vending machine - rather convenient for rainy days aboard a 28′ boat.

With the first break in wind and rain, and we made plans to run for Cape May. That morning was spent grocery shopping while we let the seas settle down a bit. Anchors were aboard by noon and we were back out in the Atlantic by 1300 and bound for our last stop in NJ, after 8 days in the Garden State. Glorious sail under perma-reef main and jib, steered flawlessly by the Monitor.

Arriving at Cape May in the dark with plans to leave at 0600 the next morning, we didn’t bother rafting up or launching the dink for a post-sail-visit. We anchored, on the east side of the USCG station in 12′ and went to bed promptly.

The Delaware Bay has always been a motorboat ride and this trip up, was more of the same. We caught the AM tide and ran with it as long as we could. The tide changes later and later the further up the bay you get, so you just have to keep ahead of the change in tide and you maintain a favorable current the entire way through to the C&D canal… not hard, as long as you maintain about 6 knots! We had no wind but were able to make 6 knots underpower with the help of the current.

The C&D canal… well, I used to love it. The first time I transited it, on the HMS Rose in ‘95, I thought it was great. Warm smells of industry, blossoms, orange lights… I don’t know why, but it seemed really neat at the time, must have been all the pine tar I was smokin’.  It’s a 2.5 hr trip on this boat - rather long, and well, almost boring. Too bad there wasn’t any large vessel traffic, that always keeps it exciting. The sunset over the canal’s west end was lovely however.

Jersey… I’ve always sailed right on by; a long, monotonous coastline. Like the Jersey turnpike, you just count down the exits till its over. Of course, Jersey does have one thing going for it: Symphony X. But this trip has forced us to spend some time here, starting with Sandy Hook. We enjoyed a glorious run down the East River as the sun began to set. Not knowing where to go with a NW wind blowing 15kts, and some waves building in Raritan Bay, Sandy Hook didn’t seem like the best choice for anchorage. But after some fun sailing-reconnaissance in the dark under reefed main and jib I found a breakwater on the south shore of Raritan Bay, with plenty of room to anchor behind its lee… in thick black mud we discovered the next morning, as our gloves, deck and chain locker got covered in it.

With limited knowledge of the NJ coastline, I decided to pull out a publication our friends Lynne and Brian lent us. They made the East Coast trip last winter on their boat Three Sheets. In a bit of a panic for a place to anchor for the night, Skipper Bob put my mind at ease. Next stop: Manasquan Inlet I declared with a smile. Skipper Bob indicated a sweet little anchorage in a mysterious place called “The Glimmer Glass”…sounded cool to me. Only one caveat,  “The bascule bridge is a very tight fit for sailboats, as it doesn’t open very far.” That’s OK I thought, I was used to the Lagoon Pond bridge in Vineyard Haven, can’t be much smaller then that. Well when we arrived, we found an old rickety little bridge that indeed didn’t open very much at all! I was a little nervous, and didn’t dare look up at the mast while going through. But once inside, what a little oasis. Thanks Skipper Bob! We took all his advice and rowed the dink ashore to the beach by the railroad trestle, found town, and even fit in a movie - for the bargain price of $6 no less! No complaints about Manasquan, NJ.

Two days later, we hauled back our anchors and left the Glimmer Glass bound for Abescon Inlet, better known as Atlantic City; an ambitious run for us of 55 nautical miles. Winds were NE at 10 kts, but forecasted to diminish by afternoon…which is exactly what they did. But I did get in a chance to sail with the Monitor, which I must say has been steering rather poorly this whole trip. Something is still not right… another item on my long list of things that need attention.

Once again Skipper Bob steered us right with our anchorage in Atlantic City, from where I write now. Inside a narrow, twisty and shoaly cut between the reeds, north of the city lies a medium sized basin of 12-15′ of water with room for 10 or so boats. It’s a nice view of Atlantic City (which never goes dark) from here, but we’re surrounded by an insulating wall of Spartina. There are 6 of us here now riding out this gale. Last evening I set my second anchor, I call it my sleeping pill. This AM the gale persists and another low is following in its footsteps. We might be here for 2 more days as it blows 30kts+ from the North. But we’re snug as a bug… heater’s going, pancakes & bacon on our plates, hot tea in our mugs, and a chance to catch up on some work.