Delivering Neutrino in 2022

I look back to my first overnight after buying my boat

This is the story of sailing my new boat alone for two days on the Chesapeake bay. It was a fun adventure!

I bought Sequel in Annapolis and renamed her Tao Neutrino, and sailed her solo South 50 miles to Solomons MD, where she’ll get some upgrades for a planned Pacific circle starting around Spring of 2024.

TL;DR: I set sail on a Saturday in the early afternoon and arrived in Solomons Monday afternoon. Living on my new boat for two days and two nights was a great way to get to know her and briefly settle into sailing life.

I knew the journey was a little bit risky because there were so many new things or unknowns, including sailing a boat I barely knew in an unfamiliar location. The weather seemed reasonable for spring so that was one of the reasons I took the opportunity to go when I could.

Logistics for the whole trip took a bit of planning: I rented a car for a day and spent that day getting the boat ready. I returned the car and took an Uber back to the boat. Then I sailed for two days, had an extra day at the boat yard, and took a one-way rental back to the airport.

Fri 4/1/22

I spent quite a bit of time going over the boat to see what I might need to buy. My plan was West Marine for a new starter battery for sure, and maybe other boat stuff. Then Target for some pots and other kitchen essentials like paper towels and trash bags. Then Trader Joes for food, and maybe dinner with my nephew Nathan. The boat had no water since it can freeze in Annapolis, and held just a small amount of antifreeze in the tanks, so several gallons of drinking water was essential. I had no idea how much fuel she had and didn’t see any fuel gauge. I took my time getting organized and then headed out shopping.

My errands went pretty quickly and smoothly, and I realized I had time to go back to the boat before heading out to see Nathan. That was fortuitous since the previous owner Chip Brown arrived and we did a quick meet and greet and he gave me some binders with Sequel info, and did a quick Q&A with me. He told me she almost certainly had a decent amount of fuel, and some other valuable information.

I actually installed the battery that evening because I wanted to be sure it fully charged up from shore power before leaving.

I had trouble sleeping that night, and worried that I’d had almost no sleep the night before either on the red-eye but I didn’t actually feel too badly, I just didn’t trust my own judgment.

Saturday

I took my time making sure everything on the boat seemed to work and I knew how to use it.

A nice couple dropped by and I gave them a tour of the boat and we exchanged stories. They are trying to buy a boat, and have a dog to bring with them to the Bahamas if they ever find the right vessel. I told them about Kretschmer and Captain’s Hour.

I decided not to get fuel because I was intimidated about maneuvering the boat. Just getting out of the slip seemed a bit daunting. I started the engine and put it in gear and eased ahead, then eased in reverse, all with the dock lines still attached! It was unclear which dock lines were mine and which were not, so I took the two that were easy to take and left the two that were not.

I cast off the leeward dock lines and thought through the whole “release front, run back and release the other” routine, and then just did it! I was underway!

I made my way through the marina and out into the bay and saw that there was some wind but it was light and in the wrong direction. I felt that wasn’t too bad — better light than strong.

Pretty soon I was feeling quite good and put on the autopilot and went all the way up to the roller furler and took this photo.

I sailed for a couple of hours tacking back and forth in the light air. I didn’t know how good those house batteries would be so I wanted to minimize use of the autopilot. I tried to balance the sails and find a point where she would just keep a course, but that didn’t work while heading upwind in the light air. Eventually I tracked the battery level closely using the battery monitor and just let the autopilot do the steering.

Luckily there wasn’t much ship traffic. When I did see one it made a photo-op (above).

One sailboat came up behind me and hailed me. I was surprised he sailed significantly faster than I did since the other boat was a bit shorter. He said it was a Farr 30, or something like that, and then I felt better. That’s a high performance boat. Amazingly he said he’d met Chip while at West Marine a few hours earlier!

Since I wasn’t making much progress and the wind was light I decided to keep sailing into the evening and figured if anything the wind would die down. It did, but after an hour or two it came on strong.

Suddenly I realized I was overcanvased and needed to bring down the main sail! I’d never reefed the main before, but I knew I needed to go up to the mast. Luckily I had practiced reefing the genoa while the wind was light , so it was already reefed. What point of sail should I am for? Would I be able to pull it down? The halyard was on one side so I tacked to put it onto the high side so I crouched low and made my way along the handrail moving forward up to the mast. Thank goodness that autopilot was working! I released the halyard and was able to pull down the main to the second and final reef. Then I found a sail tie and wrapped it around the aft cringle to keep the loose part of the sail from flogging. I even figured out how to attach and tension the outhaul. Yes, I was rocking again!

Luckily I had marked several anchorages on my phone using Google Maps and so those stars made it clear where my overnight options were. I saw that Flat Island should give reasonable coverage from the wind and was not too far away.

At one point I saw some dark tower ahead — a boat with no anchor light! Thank goodness I spotted it before colliding. I followed John’s Kretschmer’s instructions on anchoring, and thanked my past self for practicing anchoring at the dock and even pulling out all the rode and seeing how it was marked, etc. I set the anchor and went below. It was midnight.

Sunday 4/3/22

I got a bit of a sleep-in and it sure felt good to be secure in a beautiful anchorage.

I’d sliced my finger a bit making eggs with mushrooms the night before — after sharpening the lovely knife that came with the boat. So I had more of the same and it sure hit the spot.

I headed out and found strong wind from a great direction and started sailing South.

When I went onto the fore deck I had a surprise. I’d knocked over the dorade vent last night. Well, I guess something had to break, and I was OK with that, and surprised it was still on deck. That was lucky.

As I left I saw that the cart plotter had captured all the zig zags I’d done the day before.

Soon I was making good progress. I decided to have lunch in the cockpit as the autopilot kept us on track.

Luckily everything worked, and the wind was strong but from the perfect angle from the starboard aft quarter. I had simply left the main fully furled from the night before and just didn’t need it with the strong wind. I saw the boat go 7 knots, then an hour later 8, and 8 again. At one point I saw 9 for just a second. The boat would shudder as I came down the swells at those higher speeds which would only last 3–5 seconds. But I was doing a steady 6, probably hull speed — the theortical limit in flat water — for my vessel.

I did a quick calculation — would I make it to the next anchorage before dark? My ETA was 7 PM, so maybe. This section of coast had no anchorages, so I needed to just keep moving and hope for the best. Soon I was getting close to Solomons — my destination — and I decided upon an anchorage I had seen on a website. I had emailed the URL to myself, so I brought it up, copied the lat/lng and pasted it into Maps on my phone. That worked! Now I had a destination, and I figured the chart plotter could help me navigate there.

As I rounded the corner to Solomons I was heading almost directly into the wind. I had furled the genoa part of the way, and needed to furl it again, and then a third time. I wanted to pull it all the way in but it seemed to be stuck. I went up the furler to see what had gone wrong. It was literally at the end of its rope. I had furled the sail so tightly that I’d used up all the wraps on the furling line. So I simply sheeted the scrap back using both sheets to keep it centered and keep it from flogging.

Here’s the small amount of sail I used for the second half of my sail south.

And here I am “surfing” down a wave, though they are actually quite small and I was just getting a small boost from not being in flat water.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/w7v9z3Uf1vcihLRUA

The wind was howling and I motored along aiming for the narrow creek that supposedly had a sheltered anchorage. I found myself getting close to a hazard marker and the bow was blown to the side by the wind, so I just circled the wrong way and tried again with more throttle. Soon I was winding my way up Mill Creek and into calmer waters. I found the spot from my map just at 7 oclock as the light was fading. There was very little room, but I was able to choose a spot that should swing me near the center if the wind direction held. I couldn’t put out too much rode because the whole area was so narrow. I was just anchoring in the middle of the creek!

I slept OK considering that it was still gusty even here, and I was worried about swinging or the anchor not holding.

Monday 4/4/22

There’s nothing quite like waking up in a nice anchorage! Yea, everything is fine!

At some point I had wrapped the furling line around the genoa to hold it in place to reduce windage. I think that was last night.

The sheets themselves wrap the sail, and this jury rig keeps it from unrolling.

It was pretty straightforward sailing back out of the creek, except that at one point the chart plotter freaked out and put us on dry land. I rebooted it, and all was fine again. Mark Breth was there at the dock to help me arrive, and then I was back on dry land again, after two days at sea.

I decided to pretend to work from the boat, and propped up the phone to take this photo.

I went over the work order with Mark and then walked to a fabulous dinner at the CD Cafe.

Tuesday

I packed up and stowed everything on the boat as best I could. I hope to have her trucked to CA in May or June after adding a Hydrovane and windlass and updating all the rigging.

I Was Lucky

I was very lucky everything went well on this trip. I made several mistakes, and there’s an unsanitized version (https://bit.ly/morris-36) that lists them and the lessons learned. The biggest mistakes were not carrying extra fuel and not wearing a harness. Although I made a good decision not to try to maneuver the boat to the fuel dock, I could have bought a 5 gallon jug and filled it up so I would have fuel in an emergency. I don’t know why I didn’t wear a harness. I guess I just didn’t think I would need it … until I did … and at that point I felt too busy and it was too hard to find. I must have lost my balance at least once when I was up by the mast because I had leaned against the dorade vent and broken it off! I wonder, if it had not been there would I have fallen into the water? That would have been fatal. So yeah, I was lucky.