Mayday Trip 05

8/9/2019 Mayday Trip 05

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May Day Sail



I decided to celebrate May Day with a Day Sail

out on the Chesapeake Bay yesterday. Windswere predicted 5-10kts South so I thought I

might try a leisurely close reach across the

bay toward Tilghman Islands Blackwalnut

Point and perhaps do some exploring in

Dogwood Harbor home to several skipjacks.

With the outboard stowed and full sail I wasmaking good time through Herring Bay and

across Long Bar. Before long the wind died

down and I furled the genoa making less than

1.2 kts toward my way point.



The breeze freshened and I was soon making over 3.5kts but a shift

now had me on a North Easterly bearing towards Eastern Bay. Since I

was just out for a leisurely day sail I decided to change my route and

try to find something of interest to explore off of Kent Island near

Bloody Point Light. About an eight knot breeze was perfect conditions

for testing my newly installed tiller pilot. Look Mom, no hands.



Sailing “no hands” using the tiller pilot does not mean sailing without a sharp look

out. About half way across the bay I noticed a half dozen big container ships just

South of the Bay Bridge waiting to unload in the Baltimore Harbor. One of these

monster ships appeared to be moving and I was just about to enter the main shipping

channel. I find it’s always best to aim for the back of one of these monsters rather

than play chicken and try to cut across its bow. I have a neat new application from

Navionics for my iphone that shows all the current shipping traffic using AIS but for

some reason the information is stuck on about seven day old locations. A few pushes

of the button on the tiller pilot and I was soon passing behind the fast moving tug

and barge.

Check out my new flag. It’s

installed with these nifty little clips

that attach to the aft shrouds. They

kept riding up and down the shroud

so I put a few wraps of rigging tapeIn place and it works fine.



OK, so I am across the bay now and not finding any place

interesting where I can slip in to explore and still make it back

home in time for diner. With the wind building to over 10 kts out

the South I decide it would be fun to test my pointing ability

tacking back and forth through the Poplar Island Narrows. My

best pointing ability to date has been a disappointing 110degrees, 55 D off the wind in each direction. I was pleasantly

surprised to find that with a full main, boom down, jib sheets in

the number two piston alongside the cabin, I was able to tack a

true 90 degrees, 45 D off the wind on each tack. I was still able to

keep the boat speed over 3.2 kts all the way through the

Narrows.



In addition to shifting shallows, the Poplar Narrows also include a number of fish weirs that need to be

navigated. Poplar Islands is an interesting place, visited by Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry

Truman for its abundant wildlife it soon began to erode from its original 1,000 acres to less than 84 acres.



The islands have benefited from a program to

place the dredge spoils from Port Baltimore

promoting a successful wildlife habitat.

Unfortunately landing on the islands is

prohibited but it’s nice to see them coming back

to life.



I have this nifty new application from Navionics for my iphone that allows meto record a trip using the built in gps and can include photos along the way

that I can then email as a kzm link that will show my log and photos using

google earth. Well the iphone recorded my trip fine but it appears the file

exceeds the kzm file size limitation. The above information is from the

Navionics log and the lack of kzm file made for a good excuse to prepare this

old fashioned log format.



Having rounded Poplar Island successfully tacking

my way through the Narrows and avoiding the fish

weirs along the way I now headed home on a nice

easy reach toward Herrington Harbor back on the

Western shore. The tiller pilot again did a nice job

as second mate as I attended to the beverage

department.



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Mayday Trip 05