Shallow Water Sailors Spring Cruise 2012

A rare photo of Cream Cheese under sail taken by Norm.
CLC Pocket Ship in the background.

Last Saturday, Julie and I met up with the Shallow Water Sailors in the Chester River on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay.  They were in the middle of their spring cruise which started on Thursday and ended on Sunday.  It was great to meet other small boat enthusiasts and sail with boats that I had read about for years but never seen.  There were three Dovkies, two Shearwaters, a CLC Pocket Ship, a Normsboat, a Core Sound 20, a Montgomery 17 and a few other types.

We launched at Long Cove, a Kent County boat ramp and marina with a lot of working craft. 

Wooden workboats getting ready for the season

Ready to sail

As we sailed out of the cove, we met up with the flotilla heading south - almost like we had planned it that way.  We spent a leisurely hour of sailing in company and watching a Lightning class dinghy race.

Normsboat and a Dovkie

Norm and his Normsboat

Upwind leg.  Notice how she is down at the stern.
Next time, I will move some more weight to the bow to
counterbalance that motor.

We headed across the Chester river to a small beach to stop for lunch.  The upwind sail in about 10 mph winds gave me an opportunity to see how each boat performed.

I was impressed with the speed of the Normsboat, Dovkie, Core Sound 20 and the Pocket Ship.  In particular, I was surprised by the performance of the Pocket Ship because it just seems so cute and shippy.  I had assumed her looks came at the expense of performance, but I was proved wrong: she points well and goes fast.

Brent and his Core Sound 20

At the beach we got a chance to meet some of the crew and talk about boats and cruising for a while.

Core Sound 20 and wet dog

Dovkie on the beach  (the bunk lids are added)

A well built Marth Jane, it felt much larger than I had expected 

A beautiful CLC Pocket Ship

Leo and Paul talking boats

On the way back, the clouds rolled in and wind picked up to about 15 to 20 mph and we screamed back to the ramp on a broad reach, sometimes breaking 7 mph, which is very fast for Cream Cheese.  The new changes to the reefing system worked out well and we were able to tie in a reef with much less hassle than before.  The new oar port covers kept the cockpit dry the whole time, something I don't remember happening in a long time.

It was a great day and I look forward to more adventures with new friends.

More upgrades

1. Reefing
In an attempt to make reefing go faster, I've made a few minor changes.

Snotter.  Up till now, I've simply tied the snotter around the mast.  There is a spring clip tied to the end of the boom which clips to the snotter.  This is a simple system, but it gets fouled with the sail lacing when raising and lowering the sail to reef.  The new arrangement uses a ring tied to the mast.  The spring clip is now clipped to the ring and tied to the snotter.

New snotter setup

Downhaul. I also got a larger hook for for my downhaul which is easier and faster to fasten.

Larger spring clip

I did a few reefing drill with the new rig in my driveway: the best I could do was about six minutes.  On the water, it will probably take closer to ten minutes.  The results are a bit disappointing, but I think the procedure will be safer and more reliable with the latest changes.

2. Oar Ports
Last trip we got a lot of water in the cockpit through the oar ports when it was blowing and choppy.  I made two covers for the oar ports to keep the waves out.

Panel Cart

I have a lot of lumber and sheet stock left over from old projects.  I usually find a use for it, but sometimes it takes five or ten years.  For a long time, I just stacked it against a wall in the garage, but it was difficult to find things, impossible gain access to keep the garage clean and mice and other animals would die back there.  Last year, I made a cart from particle board, 2x4's, galvanized pipe and 3" cast iron swivel casters.  It holds a ton of wood and is easy to move around the garage.

A few of the things in my cart:

• 4/4" pecky cypress planks from an old barn in Louisianna
• 1/4" UHMW polyethelyne sheet - slippery, dense, machineable.  Great for rub rails and bearing surfaces
• 1/2" MDO plywood (paper glued on one side)
• 3/4" ash and cherry
• 1/4" plexiglass

Boat building glue - 12 year test

When I built Cream Cheese in 2000, I experimented with four different glues.  I figured that about 10 years into the future I would have some useful information to share.  Now that over a decade has elapsed, I feel I can report on the success rate.  I've had the boat in a garage for about half of the time and under polytarps for the other half.  Best to worst:

1. Epoxy thickened with fused silica. I use thickened epoxy from Raka for the mast, leeboard, rudder, butt-blocks on the hull and some of the deck cleats.  Most of the epoxy joints have held up.  The leeboard, which probably gets the most abuse of all the parts on the boat, has had some delamination.
2. PL Premium. I glued the port chine log and both gunnle's with PL Premium and it hasn't required any repairs yet, but I suspect it may need some minor work in the near future.
3. Elmers liquid polyurethane.   I used this liquid glue for gluing the 3/4" pine frames to the bulkheads.  Some of these joints have required repairs.
4. PL 500.  I used this for the starboard chine log and I've had to repair practically the whole length.  Luckily I didn't use it for anything else

This year I am fixing some of the few remaining spots that haven't been repaired on the starboard chine. To make the repair, I use a chisel and razor to cut out the old glue and create a channel.  Then sand the surrounding area.  Finally, I wet out the joint with epoxy and then apply a fillet. 

You can see there is a gap between the
chine log and the hull.  Fore and aft are fillets
from where I've fixed other parts of the joint. 

For this type of job, I have a number of sanding tools in my box: A Bosch mini belt sander (6"x1.5"), a Dremel combination cutter/sander, a Bosch 2.3 Amp random orbital sander and a Resp-O-Rator.

Sanding Tools

Fillet thickened with fused silica and microballoons

A Sharpie in Core Sound - Part 4

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After spending 3 days on the barrier island called South Core Banks, we were ready to head southward.  Unfortunately, the favorable NE wind from the day before had turned into a strong SW with a forecast for 20 mph winds, gusting to 30.  We took one more long walk on the beach, packed up and stowed our stuff, got into our foul weather gear and headed out.  

Day 4 Path, 16 Miles

After bumping a few times in the shallows near the duck blinds, we made it into the channel and started slogging our way upwind.  We had some vague hope of possibly making it to Shackelford Banks with the help of a favorable wind shift, but after four hours of pounding into the steep chop, we turned around and headed back north, intending to anchor in Oyster Creek, just north of Davis.  I was very proud of how well Cream Cheese had done, but we we weren't racing and Oyster Creek seemed like a nice place to investigate.

On our way, we beached the boat at the Davis Ferry terminal and took a walk around, stopping at a little tourist shop to wash up and have some coffee.  

Beached and sheltered
(the halyard was loose because we
were in the process of lowering the sail)

Back to the small beach near the ferry terminal we lowered the mast and lashed it on deck.  The entrance to Oyster Creek is spanned by a 10' clearance highway bridge, so we knew we would have to lower the mast sometime.  We powered out into the channel, made our way to the mouth of the creek (sometimes surfing with the breaking waves) and scooted under the bridge.  The water in Oyster Creek is 1 to 2 ft but we were near high tide so we followed crab pots deep into the creek and nosed into the bank of a levee.  On the windward side of the levee, the wind was howling and on the leeward side the waves were frothing up just yards from our stern, but it was snug and calm in the wind shadow of the levee.

Snug and dry

Picture taken from the levee road.

The shores of the Core Sound are carved up by hundreds of uniform, straight canals.  In Louisiana, we call canals like these trenasse and they are usually cut by duck hunters or oil companies.  There were a number of trenasse near the levee.  The levee encloses an irregular pond of about one square mile that borders the creek.  The canals are cut outside of this area except where they seem to pierce it (below).  I would love to know more about these structures and their purpose.  Perhaps the pond is/was some sort of fish farm?  Maybe the canals are for flood control, but if so, why does their shape pierce the pond?  Are there submerged pipes?  Maybe the pond was built after the canals and the small bunches of grass (dots on the picture) are just left over spoil? No one I asked could tell me.

Our Anchorage, levee road, trenasses

 After setting up our tent, we took a long walk on the levee road, had a quiet meal and settled down for the night.  All week we had been reading aloud to each other the book Persuasion, by Jane Austin and this night we finally finished it.  (Spoiler alert) The heroine marries well, and all difficulties are resolved.  

After being boarded on the first night by Racoon 139, I decided it would be best to move the boat away from the bank a bit, so I used the second anchor to draw is into the canal a bit. 

Evening in Oyster Creek

Breakfast in Oyster Creek

The next morning, we got up early to beat the low tide but almost missed our window.  We just barely got out of there by sliding Cream Cheese along the mud and polling with our oars.  After passing back under the highway bridge, we stopped at a well maintained boat ramp to raise the mast, make tea and have breakfast.

Breakfast at the bridge

Our plan for the day was to return to Harkers Island Fishing Center so that we could drive home to Pennsylvania the next day.  We had a lovely sail in much more variable wind conditions.  We started the day with one reef but added a second reef a few hours later.  Then the wind dropped to almost nothing so we shook out both reefs.  Later the wind picked up to 15 mph and shifted to the south so we went back to two reefs on an upwind beat, still very comfortable.  Each time we reefed, it took 10 to 15  minutes to get going again and we usually lost a lot of headway as we drifted downwind.  Much of the time was spent dealing with the snotter, downhaul and lacing.  I've got plans to change things to make reefs go faster.

At around 4:00pm, we sailed into the marina, retrieved and cleaned the boat and took long hot showers.

Cream Cheese in front of
Room 3, Harkers Island Fishing Center

That evening, we visited with John, a retired relative of the marina owner.  He helps out with the business and lives in his fifth wheel RV which he keeps parked right at the edge of the shore overlooking the sound.  It was a fun time - learning about his life growing up on Harkers Island and his life in the oil business.  If we return to the area, we will try to get in touch with him again.

The next morning on our way home we stopped at B and B Yacht Designs to talk to Grahame Byrnes about his small boat designs.  We had a fun and interesting visit with Grahame.  He gave us a tour of a big power catamaran that he is building (around 40 ft) and we saw his Core Sound 20 and his Everglades Challenge 22, Southern Skimmer.  He demonstrated his precision cut panel kits and showed us the drawings for a new update to the CS 20 with cuddy, self draining cockpit and water ballast.  He later sent me an email indicating that work on hull #1 is already in progress.  I'm seriously thinking about building this boat.

It was an awesome trip.  The boat did well under challenging conditions.  We had lots of adventures yet plenty of time to relax and when we arrived back home we were tired and happy.

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A Sharpie in Core Sound - Part 3 - Sailing

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We had some great sailing. Sometimes it was too rough to capture video, but I did manage to get some footage in more moderate conditions.

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A Sharpie in Core Sound - Part 2

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In March, our kids were scheduled to go on a week long service trip.  Julie and I haven't been on an extended vacation on our own in a very long time, so we planned to go camping or dinghy cruising somewhere in the south, weather depending.  I wrote about our preparations in Part 1.  In February we had selected a few possible destinations including the Everglades, North Carolina and Virginia.  As we approached our March 23 departure date, the weather was looking promising in the Core Sound of North Carolina's outer banks so off we went.  

I contacted Steve Earley, whose blog has a lot of great information about dinghy cruising in the area.  He recommended charts to use and possible launching sites.  On March 23, we drove from Coatesville, PA to Harkers Island, NC, stopping on the way to pick up a Suzuki 2.5 HP engine at Eds Marine Superstore in Ashland, VA.

Good prices on Suzuki outboard moters - you must pay cash

Our little sailboat looked totally out of place in the parking lot faced off against dozens of high end bass boats and sport fishing rigs.  

When we got to Harkers Island, we checked in to the Harkers Island Fishing Center, a boat storage warehouse, marina and no frills hotel right on the water.  The marina and boat storage business was still closed for the season, but the motel was open.  The rooms have painted cinder block walls and linoleum floors, but you can see the boat ramp from the window and they are very friendly people.  The whole place was pretty empty and this characterized our whole time in NC.  We were lucky to have good weather before everyone else arrived.  We were told that last year in March, the weather was freezing, wet and stormy.  During our trip we had lots of wind and a little bit of rain but the temperatures never got below 44 degrees at night or 58 during the day and most of the time we had afternoons in the 70's.

The forecast for the next two days called for high SE winds, thunder and lightning so we decided to wait to begin our trip, instead visiting the maritime museum in Beaufort and doing other touristy things.  On Sunday, there was a weather window between storm systems so we took the opportunity and at about 11:00 am we departed with a 15-20 mph south easterly.  

Harkers Island Marina launch

We sailed downwind for three or four hours with two reefs tied in, often in less that 12" of water.  The boat draws only 6" so we were able to ignore lots of navigational aides and even sailed across some shoals at low tide.  All of my modifications to Cream Cheese worked like a charm.

Love that bimini

Sailing through the shallows.  Anchor lashed on deck on top
of a door mat.  New spar rails for the oars
worked great!   

Unpacking for the night.  Clothes, bedding,
food and kitchen are all securely stowed.

More storms were predicted for the evening so we stopped early at the ruins of an abandoned hunt club.  Distance 16 miles.  This was a nice place to stop because it has an access road through the marshes linking the sound to the ocean beaches. 

As evening approached, we unstowed our gear and relaxed under the bimini and a small tarp.  We took a long walk on the deserted atlantic side bach and made some dinner.  For this trip, we brought a bunch of ready made indian food and rice dishes in sealed pouches.  These meals were very easy to prepare and clean up and they tasted pretty good!

Light tarp over bimini.  We later added a larger one for
the coming storm.

In the process of moving gear from cabin to
cockpit.

Abandoned dock was still useful for
holding our second anchor 

Empty beach

Sun, sea and shells

Before going to bed, we tied on a more complete tarp to act as a tent.  The tide went out, leaving the boat dry on the beach.  We were awoken at about 10:30 pm by a racoon scratching around in the cockpit trying to get into our food bin.  He wore a collar with a big yellow tag with the number 139 in large print.  I looked at 139, he looked at me.  I shone my flashlight at him, he looked at me.  He wasn't afraid.  I yelled at him for a while and he finally stauntered away.   He came back one more time and hopped in through the oar port, but I shooed him away again.  After that, the storm system came in and we didn't see 139 again.  We had a very wet and windy night at anchor, but the cabin stayed dry.  A wind shift from SE to NW meant adjusting the anchor arrangement twice (I had two anchors rigged).  For a while there were 30+ mph winds from the East, blowing right into the anchorage, but Cream Cheese did fine and we slept well in between anchor adjustments.

Our Army surplus mosquito net was much
needed and appreciated

We decided to stay another day and had several great walks on the seaward side of the island. There were miles and miles of empty shore with nothing but terns, gannets, gulls, black skimmers, sand pipers, plovers, pelicans, cormorants.  We had a beautiful evening with N winds at 10 mph.



On the third day, my back was hurting so despite a favorable northerly wind 15 to 20 mph that would have taken us to interesting anchorages at Shackelford Island, we took it easy and relaxed while I could recuperate.

After the first rough night, we had nothing but comfortable and pleasant sleeps.  The tarp tent, aside from being, ugly, awkward to set up and a bit noisy, worked out very well and I am eager to fashion a real fitted tent out of good materials.  During our stay at this anchorage, we only saw two people (from a distance) and three or four boats.

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