San Juan 21 Class Association

Albemarle Sound- January 17-19, 2015

January is not the ideal month for cruising the Albemarle Sound. However, my wife needed to go visit her parents and grandfather in South Carolina and decided to do it over the Martin Luther King weekend. By some unknown and unknowable graciousness I was excused from this trip which included both kids. Initially my plan had been to listen to a concert DVD I have been holding onto for just such an occasion, but given it was three full days, I immediately turned to a sailing trip.

I took off at 3pm on Friday to retrieve the boat from the marina and prep her for an early Saturday departure. It had been a stressful week at work and as I pulled onto the usually bucolic road to the marina, there was a traffic jam. Damnit, the city didn’t want this to happen, it wouldn’t let me go. I diverted, got the boat and made it home only to realize I couldn’t find my handheld VHF radio anywhere. Rather than stomp around making everyone miserable, I decided to just let it go and pack everything else first. This would turn out to be a good idea and a theme for the trip. I ended up having to go buy a new VHF that evening at Bass Pro Shop, but went to sleep with the family still loving me.

I planned my trip based on two weather fronts, one leaving and one coming to the coast. Saturday called for steady east winds 8-10mph gusting to 15. Therefore I planned to drive farther east, passing my eventual anchoring spot in order to sail back to it. I was to leave from a public boat ramp just outside Columbia NC on the Scuppernong River. I planned to sail west anchoring in the Roanoke River outside Plymouth. Then on Sunday a front was to move in early with southerly winds at 10-15mph gusting to 35 with rain starting around 9 am till the afternoon. Therefore, I needed to head due north to Edenton early and batten down the hatches. Finally on Monday, the front would pass and winds would return from the west, pushing me back to my starting point. All that to say, I planned to sail down wind all weekend.



Back at home I was up at six and on the road by seven. If you will remember I lost a wheel off my trailer last trip at 60 mph, so I was still suffering from PTSD. Just the previous weekend I had purchased a new axle with hubs and new tires/rims for the trailer. She road like a princess on a pillow the whole three hours to Columbia without incident.

At the ramp I said hello to an older local walking around with a black lab. Shortly thereafter his buddy showed up, neither with a boat, for reasons I never fully understood. Their conversation seemed to revolve around one trying to sell the other a car. They were taken with my boat though. They asked if I needed help a few times until I realized they just wanted to be a part of the production, so I put them to work holding the mast and lugging equipment aboard. The conversation slowed me a little, but it was fun to chew the fat with these guys. As I was pulling away from the dock, they kept talking which distracted me from an overhanging tree that hit the mast and dropped limbs onto the deck. Not the first time that has happened.

Winds on the sound were as predicted so my downhill sleigh ride began. The rivers and sounds here can be shallow at times but Albemarle is supposed to be deeper than the others. With that knowledge I went right of the green buoy marking where the river meets the sound and ran aground for a sec. I generally don’t pin the keel, so this was easily remedied and I was officially on the Albemarle Sound for the first time. It’s big. 8nm across where I entered with the wind building waves for the 25 miles it stretches east of that position. Waves were 2-4 ft, which was manageable if not spirited. Nice downwind sailing, however I ended up jibing downwind because of the fluky jib. I should have brought a whisker pole and used a preventer on the boom. I ended up going wing-on-wing under the tall bridge which bisects the sound half way to my destination just to get a good pic.








Did I mention it was January? Temps on Saturday never reached 50F. I had gotten on the water around 11am and was reasonably comfortable most of the day with layers, gloves and stocking cap. I started getting nervous as 3pm rolled around and I still did not have a visual on my final destination. I was worried I wouldn’t make it before sunset and didn’t want to find my anchorage at night, not to mention the temp drop that would occur. I definitely didn’t want to be on the sound after dark.

Kendrick Creek is a small tributary with an extinct marina that I had noted as a place to dog out earlier. About 4pm I was parallel to it and cold. I headed towards shore to check it out, but scolded myself for being a coward and resumed my track to the Roanoke River. Within an hour I was pulling into the Roanoke’s mouth triumphantly, cracking my first beer as I passed the first channel buoy. The waves where at their largest at this point being at the end of the sound and I promptly spilled my beer while riding the bronco, but things mellowed significantly as I made it into the protected river.



I have been having issues with my outboard lately. I assumed I had a batch of bad gas and disassembled and reassembled the carb, cleaning out some white goo. I replaced the gas, but it ran rough as the leftovers in the line ran out, but then steadied out. So I thought it was resolved. I cleaned it once more the night before I left to be sure. While motoring away from the boat ramp, I had used an external tank and she ran great for about 20 mins, but the tank was in the way while sailing, so I disconnected it and slide it forward in the cockpit. For ease of use, I decided to use the internal tank for the motor up the Roanoke. As I rounded the last bend to where I wanted to anchor the motor started sputtering again and eventually died multiple times, getting me just to my anchor point.

It was now dusk and I quickly anchored and took apart the carburetor. I sprayed it out with the carb cleaner I brought; destroying the poor environment with god knows what chemicals. I put it back together and hooked her up to the external tank but she didn’t start. I had seen no boats all day and didn’t expect to see any more. Without an engine I was going to have to sail off anchor and down river, across the sound all with a front moving in with an inch of rain predicted and strong winds. This was bad. I could see SeaTow in my future. I called my buddy in Florida for advice and all we could hope was that it was flooded. So, I took a queue from the night before and let it go, deciding to do everything else I could and deal with it later.

After a restless night, I was up at 5am. I had set my alarm for 6:30, but could not go back to sleep once I stirred. I wanted to get a jump on the day, so I fired up the stove to make some tea. I had bought a small propane heater for this trip but found the night before it wouldn’t work. However, the stove was plenty to heat up the space and made things much more comfortable. I ate my oatmeal and went to clean the bowl in the cockpit. Outside the darkness was retreating and I decided to try the engine. One pull, nothing. Second pull, a cough! Three pulls later, she was idling nicely. It was only 6am now but the light was sufficient to navigate, so I hurriedly packed up and weighed anchor in hopes of avoiding the front barreling down on me.




The engine performed like a champ the rest of the trip. I have decided the internal tank is eating itself and will be replaced soon.

I reefed the main and kept the jib down as I motored out of the river back into the sound. I was being conservative for what I expected to be a harrowing sail. I found a 8-10mph southerly breeze on the sound which was pleasant and soon I put the jib up. A few gusts up to 15, but nothing extreme as I watched the leading edge of the front following me from astern. It eventually caught me and started lightly raining, but the wind never picked up. In fact, it almost died as I reached the first channel marker into Edenton, so I fired up the motor and cruised into the public docks. The rain was pretty steady at that point. I jumped onto the dock, slipping and busting my ass, but happy to be ashore after all the drama.



Inside the cabin I battened everything down and changed into some dry clothes. I bought some ski pants for an upcoming trip that I used as wet weather gear and they worked great. I was elated to have beaten the weather and happy to stow away for a few hours as the winds finally showed up and bobbed my boat around harmlessly. I fired up the stove to make some tea to which I added a shot of whiskey that really warmed me up. Having been a backpacker the small cabin felt luxurious compared to a tent in similar conditions, though I do envy standing headroom. I listened to several podcasts and just hung out until the rain blew by around 1:30p.



Edenton is a great town and this was my first time here. I had done my homework and saw a theatre just a few blocks from the Edenton docks that was playing American Sniper at 2p and would provide a good excuse to get inside. I checked the boat in with the town dock master, then walked to the show. Sold out, damn. But, I remembered my zen philosophy of letting go and took a long walk around town. I walked to the Marina on the edge of town and generally toured the historic district.









As I returned back to the dock, I visited the old light house there. I had walked up just to take a casual look, when a young man came out and asked, “You here for the tour?” I said no, but he looked so excited and it was clear I was probably the only person he had seen that day. He apologetically told me it cost $3.50. No problem, I gave him $4 and told him to keep the change. The lighthouse had originally been at the mouth of the Chowan River at the end of the sound as a marker for the heavy trade in the late 1800s. The state sold it to a business man for $30 after it had been closed for several decades and he had it relocated to Edenton. His heirs donated it to the state who then restored it after years of neglect. The canceled movie turned out to be a blessing in disguise.





The sun was out and temps stayed in the middle 50s with little wind the rest of the evening allowing me to hang in the cockpit for a change of scenery. To bed by 9:30pm in anticipation of the next day. I was plagued by the dreaded keel trunk bump starting around 3am. I was convinced the boat was banging against something until I decided it was the keel. I cranked it up and down to no avail. Dig the earplugs in deeper and let it go...

I awoke unexpectedly to the sun on the plexiglass cockpit hatch. It was 8am already and a western wind was blowing a steady 10-12mph in harbor. I knew I had a 26 mile run and with the wind building all night, I wanted to get going to avoid the eventual wave build up. Perfect departure from the dock, but struggled with my main in the narrow river and the fresh breeze. Another ceremonious bump on the bottom and I was headed on my third and final downwind run in as many days.

This last leg was one of my best days of sailing ever. Very steady 10-15mph throughout the day with gusts up to 30 and making great time the whole way. I have a crappy jogging app I use for making my GPS tracks that will announce your speed periodically, but only in mph. It also doesn’t tell me the fastest speed I reached, but several times it reported 7+mph and steady 6.5. Slacker radio was feeding a nice stream of Grateful Dead with several Dylan covers. Not a cloud in the sky and I was warm with just a jacket and intermittent gloves.

Several times I got to surf the boat down a wave as the gusts built up. I had to be careful, for if a gust hit just as a wave lifted my stern, the heal of the boat combined with intense weather helm from the gust wanted to broach the boat. I learned a lot about sailing downwind in pretty stiff wind and how to dump some power by letting the sail out. I tend to be tacking on my lake most of the time, so my standard for handling extreme gusts is to turn up and ride the luff. On a broad reach you have enough angle to cause heal when a gust comes up (as opposed to running where you just go faster, no heal), so I learned to dump some of the wind by letting the sheets out more and getting the sail to twist. I had read about this, but never saw it in practice like this.

I also practiced heaving to in order to go below or pee. I know this isn’t a gentlemanly topic, but the drain hole makes for a great urinal if you are single handing in rolling waves and don’t want to pee over the side. Quick flush with the bailer and bob’s your uncle.

Getting the boat back into the ramp was pretty easy. You don’t realize how much you get in tune with the boat in such short amount of time, but the wind was still gusting about 20mph when I made it to the channel pushing me sideways. I was able to motor slowly at an angle to make the forward progress I needed. If I had been day sailing on the lake in similar conditions, I would have struggled.

If you get a chance to visit this part of Albemarle Sound, I highly recommend it, even in January!

What a great adventure! Thanks for sharing.

I have moored our boat for the past couple of seasons here on Lake Mendota, but have never attempted a trip such as you describe. I'm not sure my sailing abilities would be up for it.

Rubbish, you can do it. Just make sure you have the proper safety equipment and the boat is seaworthy. When I got this boat 3 years ago, it felt huge compared to what I had sailed before. I had no confidence, but just pushing your comfort level a little at a time you get better and better. No one is fully prepared, you just throw yourself out there and see what happens.