Next message: Lynn H. Ogden: "[world-cruising] Re: Shipboard Time"
Carol, I and Midnight Escape are now in Charleston after a wonderful overnight sail. We left Dallas bluff Marina at 7am Friday Morning and motored out Sapelo sound in South Georgia. At entrance marker 5 we set a GPS course for Charleston RW entrance marker. However, instead of going out that far, we skirted the RW entrance markers for most of the major sounds up the coast so we stayed out 5-8 miles.
The winds were very low the first morning until just after we left Sapelo entrance channel. About 10 minutes after we left the channel, we raised the sails and cut the engine and were running around 3kh on GPS. Winds were out of the W-SW and we were on a run. As the winds shifted to the S-SE we jibed and the winds held there through the day and night and we were on a Broad reach.
The winds built through the morning and about noon the GPS bounced from 6.2 KPH to as high as 7.7 with a following sea. Of course some of the high numbers were from the rolling sea and surfing. We were flying and the hull speed of a T30 is only about 6.6kph (correct?). It held that way through midnight with the tiller pilot steering and we did not touch sail trim. When the GPS trip showed our first 100km, it was 19hours and 26 minutes. At that rate, the GPS showed ETA of 3-4am.
However after 1am the winds started to fall off and slowly dropped of until around 7 am we were about 2.6kt from Charleston entrance channel marker 8 and only going about 2kt. We started the engine, dropped sails and motored the rest of the way in. We were in and tied up buy about 10:30am, the winds had picked back up but we were tired. I had not expected to hit the outer Charleston markers until sometime after 11:00am Sat morning.
On the way in, there were at least 50 sailboats going out for a race, as this is race week in Charleston. We had a wonderful trip and as always, learned a lot. During the night we were on one-hour watches and next time I think we will try 2-hour.
After we arrived, we had to make the 5 hour round trip to retrieve the other car and went to bead early. This morning we are going back over to the boat to clean it up. It is great having the boat within 9 miles.
Cheers
Ron Chambers
78 Tartan T30 Hull 532
Midnight Escape
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