Trawler Blogs

We arrived in Charleston yesterday after a 10 hour 84 mile offshore run from Hilton Head and were looking forward to a few days in this exciting city with our friends Darrell and Sue who planned to arrive on Monday.  We’ve visited Charleston a number of times, once by car circa 2006, on the Great Loop  in April 2010 and most recently while attending the 2013 Outer Reef Rendezvous (June in Mount Pleasant).

However, we were not entirely looking forward to the journey from Charleston to Norfolk, which we planned to do on the ICW.  So we went back and reread our blog and we were reminded of the ICW challenges of tricky navigation, skinny water, currents and no wake zones.  Hmm.  We wondered if there was a reasonable offshore alternative.

Note: Charleston is a great place but at this time of the year it is full of bugs called no see-ums.

Explanatory Note:  Cruising like life is full of trade-offs.  Traverse the ICW and you cruise on calm waters with constantly changing scenery.  But you trade that for tricky navigation, skinny water, currents, no wake zones and the need to pay constant attention to tides (especially now that we draw another foot of water – 5 ft on the 63 versus 4 on the 48).  Operate on the ocean and you get direct routes with deep water.  But there are trade offs.  You have to negotiate inlets, some of which are very tricky (read as dangerous), add miles getting in and out of the inlets, add distance as the inlets are relatively few and far between and finally, and most critical, you have to deal with weather, wind and waves. 

Readers will recall that we departed St Simon Island for Hilton Head on calm waters and then after a two day stay departed Hilton Head for Charleston on the same weather window.  We checked the weather on Saturday night to see if our weather window was still “open.”  It was. 

According to Weather Underground, seas on Sunday were forecasted as 2 to 3 feet building to 3 to 4 feet on Monday on mild southeasterly winds (5 kts building to 15 kts ) and then increasing steadily to 5 to 7 feet as  winds picked up  15 to 25 as a cold front approached from the west.   My take, there was 36 to 48 hours remaining on the current weather window.

Explanatory Note: Heading north east along the shore with a southeast wind is a favorable condition for the 63.  Waves were forecasted to be on our beam which is optimum for the hydraulic stabilizers.  I’ve had Guided Discovery out on a 6 foot beam sea and she rode just fine.  Stabilizers are effective with seas from about 30 degrees to 150 degrees on the beam.  Following seas are OF too.  The most difficult point of “sail” is a head sea where the boat wants to pitch.  Stabilizers control roll.  They are and less effective with pitch and yaw.

The next question was where to go.  Below are the cities we visited on Great Loop between Charleston and Beaufort, NC with the miles for each leg.  The trip is 235 nautical miles with four stops.  I calculated the offshore run from Charleston to Beaufort and determined 212 miles including the inlets at both ends.  The difference is 23 miles which at 8 knots represents three hours and 18 gallons of fuel.

Summary: We had a solid 24 hour weather window with an acceptable 24 hour cushion.  We could save both travel days, some long some short, and distance (fuel).  We could get within 180 nautical miles of Norfolk where we will meet Dick Singer and Phil Fuoco for the 500 mile offshore run to the Cape Cod Canal.   We could be in a charming city (Beaufort) with a downtown dock and we could get out of Charleston’s no see-ums (bugs that have been driving Diana crazy and a long walk to town from the marina). If we left at 10:00 AM we would get into Beaufort around 11:00 AM (assuming 8.4 knots at 1400 RPM). Tradeoff: 25 hours on the water with an overnight.  Concern: Kodi has never eliminated on the boat.

Night crossings have historically not been our thing.  In fact Diana and I have only made one, a five hour run from Chicago IL to Southhaven MI on the 44 Sundancer (at 20 knots) in circa 2002.  I made one without Diana from Mystic to Branford CT on October 10, 2011 to move the boat closer to Yale New Haven Hospital after Diana’s knee injury (that ended our cruising for 8 months).  That run involved a tricky night approach to an unfamiliar harbor.

Decision: Go!

We moved the boat from our slip to the gas dock, which proved to be tricky maneuver as we were against a wall with very little space to turn.  Thanks to powerful thrusters I was able to extricate us but it was definitely another learning experience. 

Diana gave Kodi a walk while I fueled the boat.  We took on 460 gallons at $4.05 per gallons, the lowest we paid to date.  While on the walk Diana picked up some stones where Kodi had urinated in the hopes that It would encourage her do so underway.

We departed at 10:28 AM and headed down the channel past Fort Sumpter on an outbound tide.  Good news: The 2.4 knot current raised our speed to 11.0 knots  Bad news: The outbound current combined with the 10 knot easterly wind produced 4 to 5 foot standing waves in the channel.  Guided Discovery pitched a bit, which scared the Furry Kid.  We passed the 900 foot Maersk Pittsburgh a large container ship in the channel.  She threw a big wake (6 to 7 feet) but the stabilizers handled it.

At 11:18 AM we turned north and quickly were into the promised two foot seas, which were spaced 7 to 9 seconds apart.  From there to the outer channel marker at the Beaufort Inlet, which we made at 10:25 AM on Monday, we headed northeast along the coast making only three course changes.

What’s it like to run for 212 miles over 25 hours.  The answer is easy when you do it in a 63 foot trawler equipped with oversized stabilizers on relatively calm waters.  While you are aware of the seas, the boats roll is negligible even when we encountered 5 foot swells on Monday morning.  We operated from the pilothouse for 95% of the trip; both because of the temperature and the better working environment.  The pilothouse is laid out so that everything I need is close at hand.

During the evening Diana took the helm to let me catch some sleep.  I probably slept for 3 and a half hours and was very comfortable sleeping on the pilothouse settee.  

I kept a log recording data so that I might be helpful.  The data included:

Particularly important on this run was wind direction, wind speed, barometer and wave heights.  Remember, we made this journey on the basis that we had a 24 hour weather window with a 24 hour cushion.  Would the weather forecast prove to be correct and did we make a good decision?  Winds started out NE at 5 knots and gradually backed around to ENE, E, ESE and SE while we were heading northeast on the open water.  The wind speed increased over time reaching a high of SE at 14 knots just after midnight.  Then they started decreasing in velocity.  This was a good sign.  The barometer started out at 30.20 and falling at 2:45 PM.  It gradually fell to 30.12 inches suggesting the approach of the predicted low and a cold front.  Waves heights started out at 2 to 3 feet and rose gradually to 3 to 4 feet (with an occasional 5 footer).  All of this data suggested that the forecast was behaving as predicted and that we had made a good “go” decision.

Explanatory Note: I’ve always been interested in weather since my days as a private pilot (1972 to 1983 – 1,300 hours including 300 plus of actual instrument time).  As a cruiser since 1999, I’ve continued to pay close attention to weather.  However, weather is somewhat transactional  for the type of cruising we have done up until today.  By transactional I mean you look at the current conditions and forecast and decide if you have enough good weather for the distance to be covered.  Rarely did we run more than ten hours. Cruising overnight (and for longer as we plan to do from Norfolk to the Cape Cod Canal) one needs to be more strategic as weather and forecasts can change.  Do I have enough good weather for the trip and a bit more for a margin of error?  The longer the trip the greater the margin.  Keeping track of weather trends while underway serves two purposes.  One, to make tactical decisions to deal with changes and two, to improve ones judgment on the go/no go decision.

I also made engine room visits every three or four hours (wearing earmuffs made by Remington) to check for leaks and shoot temperature readings with a hand held pyrometer.  

Explanatory Note: Handheld Infrared Thermometers are used to safely measure surface temperatures without making physical contact. Infrared thermometers measure the temperature from a distance by detecting the amount of thermal electromagnetic radiation emitted by an object.

We arrived in Beaufort at 11:50 AM and tied up a Beaufort Dock, a marina that sits of their main downtown business street.

One concern: Kodi did not eliminate during the entire 25 hours despite our efforts and encouragement.  Kodi as you know is highly trained.  She knows exactly what we are asking and with the exception of eliminating, responded to every command.  She is so incredibly housebroken.  We need to work on this.

One negative.  www.activecaptain.com, a wonderful website for cruisers that provides data on marinas, anchorages, hazards and local knowledge, that is constantly updated by cruisers like us, showed the marina’s transient rate as $2.50 per foot ($158 per night).  A bit expensive but OK it’s close to town.  When I got there the dockmaster told me the rate was $2.95 per foot ($186 per night).  I mentioned that active captain showed a lower rate and further pointed out that they were less than 20% filled.  I then got a song and dace that I could get a lower rate if I took a slip ($2.75).  I did not have a good feeling about this and plan to write a negative review for active captain.  This marina does not justify $3.00 a foot.  The bathrooms are old and tired and not very clean (not that we need them but many smaller cruisers do).

Statistics:

And one post script – the weather.  We called it right.  When we awoke Tuesday morning it was raining and windy (15 to 20 knots).  The temperature decreased to 60 degrees by late evening.  At 11:30 PM Tuesday we had the promised frontal passage.  It was accompanied by a with shift to the north, an immediate 5 degree temperature drop in the first 20 minutes, a fifteen degree drop after 90 minutes and a drop in pressure to 29.89 inches.  The boat took a roll at the dock that was hard enough to cause the door on the Portuguese bridge to slam shut.  (Note: New procedure.  The door will be kept shut as weather approaches or when we are underway.

Written by Les.

Yesterday, our friend, Linda Markovits informed us that her husband, Ron, had died on Tuesday, April 7.  I had spoken very briefly with Ron the previous Saturday, learned that he was in the hospital and not feeling well.  He promised to call later.  He sounded terrible.  He never returned my call.

I did not expect him to die so quickly but then I’m not entirely surprised.  I had spoken to Ron about a year ago and learned that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer.  He said the doctor had given him a prognosis of 6 months but had said that with aggressive chemotherapy that his life might be extended to 6 years or more.   Ron embraced the chemo protocol and moved forward.

Ron and I go back many years and share some very important statistics.  We were both born in 1943, both worked for the Warranty Group, both retired after 38 years, both retired on the same day (March 31, 2010) and shared a retirement party (one of the very few ever thrown by our company).  Ron also became a boater for a brief period but his first love, after Linda of course, was golf.

Although we both worked for the same company at the end of our careers we came together from very different paths. Ron joined Combined Insurance in 1972.  I joined Ryan Insurance Group in 1972.  Our paths crossed soon after Combined acquired Ryan in an upstream merger where Pat Ryan, the CEO of the acquired company, became the CEO of the merged entity.  That Ryan became the CEO is an important fact as it caused our paths to cross about a year later.

Pat Ryan tasked me with two major training program development projects at Combined over a three year period.   And that’s how I met Ron.  He was in charge of compliance and assigned another attorney, Joe Fagan, to review my training programs.   The culture of Ryan, a very Theory Y company was different than that of Theory X Combined.  Ryan wanted to bring a Theory Y approach (Guided Discovery) to Combined’s training with the goal of increasing their training effectiveness.  Needless to say there was a clash of cultures but we worked it out and I came to greatly respect both Ron and Joe.

Fast forward a bunch of years and Ron moves into the extended warranty business and eventually becomes the Chief Legal Officer for the Warranty Group.  Starting around 2000 I became Vice President of Training and Quality Assurance for our administrative subsidiary and held that position until 2007 when I was promoted to Senior Vice President World Wide Performance Improvement for the corporation as a whole.  From 2000 to our retirement Ron and I worked very closely on training, quality assurance, complaint resolution and legal issues. 

Ron became my counselor on legal matters along with confidant and adviser, often behind the scenes.  Ron helped me tackle several ethical issues and with his help I was able to change what I will politely describe as consumer unfriendly practices.  Together we won some big battles and over time became good friends.

Lester, Diana, Linda and Ron 2010 at the Miami Boat Show (55 Fleming in the background)

In March of 2010, Ron helped me with my attempt to purchase the 2010 63 Outer Reef Cockpit Motor Yacht that was in Seattle.  He reviewed the documents and helped me with the negotiation strategy.  I got cold feet and the last minute but that’s another story.  Ron was an avid follower of this blog and often talked with me about our adventures.

We met for lunch at Savory Street in late December while Diana and I were in Sarasota waiting for delivery of the new 63.  Ron looked good, had gained back most of his weight and was hopeful about the future.  We tried to meet once more before I left for Fort Lauderdale but our schedules didn’t coincide.

Truly, 71 is too young.  I will miss my friend.

Written by Les