San Juan 21 Class Association

I have been wanting to take my buddy Neal on a winter sail in the Pamlico/Albemarle sound. He has done some crazy stuff before, so I knew he would dig it. So, we set a date and waited until the day before to make final plans given the dynamic nature of the weather this time of year. We had hoped to go out to Ocracoke, but I think I am just going to make a policy that it is not a cold weather destination. Once again I relied on Windfinder for route planning and once again it under rated the sustained winds by about half on most days. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me I guess.

We settled on a route heading out of Columbia, NC to Edenton on Friday. Saturday we would sail from Edenton to Hertford, then return Sunday to Columbia. As usual, plans changed, but that is the story.



We got up early on Friday and were on the road by 6:30am. Neal has a much nicer truck than my 200K mile 4-cylinder Highlander that he politely offered as a tow vehicle. It was nice having sufficient power. His suspension is bouncier than mine though and it caused the front hatch to pop open a couple times at 70mph after going on some overpasses. After the third time I tied the shit out of it and it stayed down. Overall, no drama on the trip there.

We put in at a public ramp I had used in the past and chronicled here for a similar sail I did (Columbia-Plymouth-Edenton-Columbia). It is a nice ramp and deep, but the canal is pretty tight. I didn’t hit the trees with my mast this time though. The Cypress Cove marina is right next to this ramp and is about 50 feet farther down the canal. They might allow you to put in for a fee and avoid the trees as well as have monitored parking, but I have had no issues with this free ramp.


This is February, so weather on the sounds is harsh. It is all about the cold fronts coming from up north and rainy systems coming from the south. We timed our arrival to show up as a southerly passed through. We arrived at the ramp around 10am and set up without issue in 71 degrees, the warmest we would see by far. The wind at the ramp wasn’t bad but it was blowing as we got out into the Scuppernong river. Neil is an avid fisherman, so we planned to fish and eat lunch to kill time as the front passed through.

We quickly realized that the 15mph wind with gusts into the 20s wouldn’t allow us to troll or hold a point for fishing, so I decided to throw out the anchor. I went below to get lunch organized and when I came back on deck I realized we were dragging anchor. I ended up throwing out my larger bruce anchor with 10ft of chain. That held us. Lunch finished and having lost some lures to logs, we pulled both anchors and headed out into the sound.




The front had largely passed, so the wind had shifted from East to Northeast and moderated to 12-15mph sustained with lessening gusts in the low 20s. The wind was nice, but the seas were still very confused because of the wind shift and 40mph winds the night before. Seas were 1-3 with an occasional 4, but very short period, steep and coming from every angle. We pounded pretty hard a few times and Neal got quiet. I was worried he was already bored, but he later admitted that in all the other times he had been on a boat, a heel of 20 degrees meant something very bad was happening. He had been scared, but hid it well. Once under the Hwy 32 bridge, the seas laid down and all the gusts were gone. We had a nice sail into Edenton in about 6 hours total (21 miles).

The Edenton town docks are free, but are currently under refurbishment, so we tied up to the seawall next to the welcome center. We were immediately engaged in conversation by some San Francisco natives who seemed excited to talk about sailing. I will be in that bay in a few weeks with some buddies, therefore I assume the universe sent them to get me excited. Edenton was adorable as usual so we walked around downtown and drank some beers.






We motored over to the Edenton Marina mainly to eat at the Edenton Bay Oyster bar. We were hungry, cold and windburned. The oysters were amazing as was the beer. It was great to get out of the cold and meet some locals. We inquired about dockage at the front desk of the restaurant, but it seemed no one knew anything about it. We stayed on the dock that night, drinking beer and listening to music. Overnight temps were in the 20s, a dramatic change from the warm weather earlier in the day. We untied from the dock at 8:30am before anyone approached us, so it ended up being a free stay. We made a quick stop at the Edenton Coffee House on the way out.

Saturday we hoped to get to the town of Hertford. Here I need to go ahead and admit that I did a poor job in planning the distances we would travel. In my head, I clump Pamlico River and Albemarle Sound into the same bucket and often forget how much bigger Albemarle Sound is. We left Edenton around 9am and would be on the water until 5pm with no stops. In total this leg ended up being 33miles and the planned route would have added another 5 or so. That is too much, so next time I will do a better job balancing sailing time with shore (read: drinking) time. Nonetheless, we prevailed.

Pulling out of Edenton we found very light winds of 2-5mph. Neal tried fishing some but about the time he got set up, the wind picked up. This day Windfinder was pretty accurate with winds building from 5 to 11-15mph by the end of the afternoon. We had a beautiful downwind sail all day with a perfect Carolina blue sky. Wing on wing all day, we had to jibe a few times, but overall it was a perfect sail.

Hertford is at the end of the Perquimans River. As we got closer to the river, I finally got to see a navigational oddity I had seen on the chart but never experienced before. At the southern point of the river mouth lies the Harvey Point Defense Testing facility. I am not sure what they test here, but there is a Restricted Area of several miles where reportedly they will come and confront you if you cross into it. We found the marked signage and stayed just outside the boundary. There is a big watch tower on shore and a hangar on the inside of the peninsula.





At the end of our downwind run, we were flying along, often hitting 7mph with 2-3ft rollers. It was a hoot. We successfully skirted the restricted area and looked forward to the shelter of the river and our final leg of the day. With the wind coming out of the west, we were hopeful we could still hold a tack on the river that lies northwest to southeast. As soon as we got into the river proper, the wind picked up dramatically to around 20 sustained with gusts into the mid-20s. This is the second time that has happened and I am guessing it is just a funneling of the wind, but I don’t fully understand it to be honest. Seems winds should be higher in the unimpeded sound than up a river. Nonetheless, the wind increased and shifted such that we could not make our tack in the river bend.

I tried to motor sail, hoping to get around a small bend in the river and resume sailing. This brought incessant waves over the bow and soaked us both. Temps at this point were probably in the high 40s. I eventually conceded defeat and dropped the main after a lot of cussing. We motored upwind with much less drama. Once upwind, I attempted to set the main again as I felt we could make the new angle for the last leg, but as I pulled the sail up I noticed it was flogging wildly. I assumed a gust had just hit so I pulled the halyard hard to get the sail up. When I looked up at the sail, I saw that the mast gate had popped open and only the two top slugs were in the track. The majority of the main was flogging free from the mast. I quickly uncleated the halyard and yelled “watch your head”. My warning came too late and poor Neal got to experience why they call it the boom.

I was really frustrated at this point. The wind was not cooperating, we were wet and cold and still did not know if we could reach Hertford before dark. I also recalled that the swing bridge you have to pass to get to the city docks did not open until 10am the next morning. I had thought we could explore upriver or the town when I planned the trip, killing time until the bridge opened. However now seeing the distances we had to travel, I knew we would need to get an earlier start than that. I had noticed a park a few miles south of the town in my research, so we made the decision to just motor to that location and forego Hertford.

The Park had a pier more than a dock, but at least it was dry ground. We climbed up to the dock and stretched our legs for the first time all day. It was about 5:30pm and so we only had about 30 mins of sunshine left. We took a short walk and Neal tried to fish, but eventually we retreated to the boat cabin. Drinking bourbon hot toddies and listening to music, we stayed up later than was probably advisable.



Morning broke early and cold. Temps were below freezing according to the frost on the sails and neither of us seemed especially excited about the sail to come. The wind was predicted to be 3-5mph by Windfinder, but the VHF was calling for 10-15 from the NW. As usual the VHF was accurate. We untied the dock lines and headed out for our 22 mile return sail.

I put on Franklin’s Tower as we pulled out, a tradition on my boat when starting the last day. Neil was looking rough from our nocturnal activities and needed to roll away some dew. After all the drama the day before and the need to keep a very high rate of speed, we decided to motor sail with only the jib up. We were reaching for the first half, but close to shore, so waves were not an issue. Once we got past the restricted area, we turned downwind to head back to the Scuppernong. Finding the river was harder than we expected because I turned off the GPS to relieve my low battery.

We made it safely back to the ramp and got some greasy cheeseburgers before the ride home. Sun and windburned, we were both completely knackered. As usual the Albemarle Sound showed us some beauty and some grief. I am ready to do it again any time though.

Peace,

Kuriti