Sailing from Herrington Harbor North to Rhode River on the Chesapeake Bay

8/9/2019 Sailing from Herrington Harbor North to Rhode River on the Chesapeake Bay

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First Overnight Trip of the 2010 Season

The sole male of my house, except for the dog, I get a lot of expert advice from my wife and two daughters on why it’s such a dumb idea to go stay out overnight in my boat by myself when I could be enjoying the nice comfort of a soft bed at home along with all that solid womanly advice. So immediately I started planning my first overnight sailing adventure of the 2010 season.

The weather report for Friday was calling for late afternoon thunderstorms as a strong front passes through the area. Sitting at the breakfast table Friday morning as the kids are getting ready for school my wife reminds me what a dumb idea it is to head out on a cloudy rainy morning to go spend time on my sailboat. 7:30 AM I am off to load up on fuel, water, ice, beer, lunch, dinner and breakfast provisions. Marine weather has small craft advisory for Friday and Saturday along with a repeat of the severe stuff that’s supposed to roll thru Friday night. The sun comes out and a nice South Westerly wind has me on a broad reach making 4.5 – 5 kts up the Chesapeake Bay. I decide to make this a relatively short trip to the Rhode River in order to duck in before the storms hit and to allow for an easy run home as the winds are supposed to sift to the North East Saturday.

Made good time to the Rhode River and did some exploring of the Smithsonian Institute Maritime facility located near Flat and High Islands. Set up the grill and enjoyed an early dinner before getting things battened down for the big thunderstormthreatening to blow through. I had a sense that the anchor wasn’t quite set and decided to move to a safer location and resjust in case. Secure in the cabin without the pop top enclosure for reduced windage I noticed some pretty ominous lookingstorms on my iphone radar. VHF marine weather is now noting 70 MPH winds and hail the size of golf balls. Not so good. Just about then the boat spun around and over on its side as the wind whistled through the rigging. I could sense a serious drag on the anchor and scrambled to done fowl weather gear and get the engine going as I was in fact dragging perilously close to a nice new Benatau securely at anchor.



The wind blowing hard and the evening darkness set in, I at least had the engine taking slack off the anchor line.Worried the anchor line would foul the prop I scrambled up on deck and effortlessly lifted the anchor on board. I

remembered seeing a mooring buoy down wind of my previous location and headed off toward were I thought it was.

Luck was with me as my flashlight caught a glimpse of the white buoy. Secure on the morning and the wind letting upa bit with flashes of lighting seeming to be pass North and South of my location I sat down in the cockpit and enjoyed acold PBR under a starry sky.



Up at 5:15 AM Saturday morning, thermos full of café Americano, dropped the mooring and sailed down the Rhode River with a stiff North Easterly wind at my back. The wind and seas picked up as I made my way to the Chesapeake Bay for the return trip home to Herrington Harbor North. It was a wild ride surfing the waves and watching the gps spike up above 7 kts. This broad reach turned more to a close reach as I neared home and the wind was increasing so much I couldn’t make much headway with the handkerchief amount of jib and little bit of main out so I turned on the iron geny and pounded into the seas for about a half hour to return to the safety of my home port.

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Sailing from Herrington Harbor North to Rhode River on the Chesapeake Bay