TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

We arrived at the boat at 1am and while Christian readied her, Rudi and I took the car back (a story in itself). By 2:30 we were slipping the lines and on our way to leave port in the dead of night. Rudi took first shift, safely getting us out of port and into the big seas. Within minutes we were in 6 foot seas with the wind on our nose. Beating into these seas in 18 knots of wind in the dark, coupled with no sleep quickly took its tole. Of course, for some mysterious reason this coincided with the first time we did not have dramamine on the boat. Whoever stole it, we are after you. By the time we took the turn and had some following seas and wind, Rudi and Christian were looking a little green. Even Austin and I felt it, but Austin managed to get down and have a good sleep. Eventually certain parties were feeding the fish and the boat was left to me and Austin. The seas, mind you were still pretty rough (with winds now 25 knots). What I did not mention is that we were unable to get gas at that time of night, so we decided to go anyway, with a 1/4 tank. Ordinarily this was not a bad idea, but ….well these things have a way….we broke the gooseneck on the main, and now have to sail with only the jib. 12 hours later, Rudi was now a mixture of green and a sickly pale white. The fishing rod broke, the GPS refused to work and we still had not fuel. To make matters worse, there appears to be no inlet we can get into, so next stop 120 miles away ..Chesapeake. In the 5 weeks of sailing so far today is firmly at the bottom of those experiences.