North Carolina Inner Banks Sailing Trip

A long posting about sailing in a small boat follows...

I went cruising on the Pamlico River and the ICW and spent two nights on the boat, sailing about 40 miles.  This was my first such trip and I had a great time and learned a lot.  One thing I learned was that in this age of digital wonders, weather forecasting is apparently very crude and blunt guesswork.  Perhaps through the reading of tea-leaves and throwing of bones.  The promised SW winds for the return were actually from the North, East and West.  Winds of 5-10 knots were zero.  Or 25-30.  The high temperature will be 70F.  No try 85F--big difference).  With that bit of venting out of the way, I can say the boat (Sea Pearl 21) performed flawlessly, even when I did not.  And the new electric motor (Torqeedo 1003) also performed as it should have.  I did not perform flawlessly, but more on that to come.

Trip Route, 39nm

Day 1 began with a trip to Potter's Marine near Bath on North Creek.  For me that is a 3 hour drive.  Then, rigging the boat took about an hour.  I usually rig the boat in about 20 minutes, but adding time for the cabin tent and motor and stowing the extra supplies took more time than usual.  That put me behind schedule, leaving the marina at 1:15pm. 

Leaving Potters Marine

I didn't eat lunch--Mistake #1.  It was a nice day, although the clouds were dark in various parts of the horizon.  Winds were supposed to be SW at 5-10kts.  There is about 1 mile to reach the Pamilico, which I reached at 2:15pm.  I had the sails up but the wind was very light so I relied on the motor most of the time.  When I reached the Pamilico, I could see the other side, 3.5 nm away. I had 5.25 nm of open water to get to Goose Creek.  The wind was on the high side of 5-10kts as I set out, tacking directly into the wind.  I had about 5 hours, before dinner time, about 7 hours before sunset.  The weather was warm. I had about 8.5 nm to go before camping.  At a 3 knot average, I could be there in 3 hours.  No problem!--Mistake #2.    I did not button up the boat well, and I did not get out the foul weather gear--Mistake #3


The Sea Pearl is not the best upwind boat, tacking through about 110 degrees (OK, technically you can tack closer than that but the speed significantly deteriorates to gain another 5 degrees).  So, to go 1 nm, I have to sail [1nm/cos(110deg/2)=] 1.74nm (a more weatherly boat might make a 90 deg tack, so they would have to go 1.41nm).   So, I should have figured the 5.25 nm of open water really required sailing 9.1 nm.  The boat should average about 3 kts, so it should have taken no more than 3 hours to cross the river.  Well, from my GPS track, it took me 15 nm of sailing to get across the river.  The angles of my tacks were about 135-140 deg, so that means 5.25 nm of progress is about 15 nm of sailing. The Pamlico was choppy (and apparently it always is when the wind is up).  And the wind increased the whole way across.  The chop ended up more like 2-3 feet with an occasional wave slapping the aft quarter and getting my back wet.  I think the chop, variable wind, plus the reefed sails increased my tacking angles significantly.

Pamilco River, before things got very choppy

I reached the inlet to Goose Creek at 6pm.  And so my average boat speed was (15nm/3.75hrs=) 4 kts, but velocity made good was only (5.25/3.75=) 1.4kts!  That's the math lesson.   My first mistake was that I should have simply lowered my usually conservative 3kt average speed to 1.7kts velocity made good when tacking into the wind.  Now, I know that with poor tacking in the waves I should conservatively count on only 1 knot of velocity made good!

So, at 6:15 pm I entered Goose Creek, hungry, tired, wet and cold.  The heavy chop was gone, but I was still having to beat into the wind going down the ICW, which I also entered at the inlet to Goose Creek.  I had 2 nm left to go.  Here I made a good decision and decided to call it a day at Lower Spring Creek.

Dinner at Lower Spring Creek

This is the first creek just off the inlet of Goose Creek.  There are several houses along the banks. I found a small cove away from them and dropped anchor in a marshy area.  I was beat and dinner was delicious.  

About the cooking gear.  I use cheap butane single burner stove and I position this on a mount I built for the rail of the Sea Pearl.  It clamps under and over the rail, cantilevered into the cockpit and has a wind shield which retains the pot from falling overboard or into the cockpit.  When I'm sitting on the other side of the boat, it is fairly level.  I was worried about spilling hot liquids on myself if a boat wake would hit the boat while cooking so I bought a pressure cooker.   This works better than I thought.  The pressure cooker speeds up cooking so heating up a can of chili mixed with a can of corn (meal for the first evening) took 5 minutes.  The lid keeps the food hot and bug free too.

The evening was bug free until dark, mercifully.  The night cooled off quickly and it rained about 3am for an hour or so.  The Sea Pearl cabin tent worked perfectly, no leaks.


Day 2 was bright and sunny.  The wind was very light blowing from the SW.  It was forecast to be 5-10 kts from the SW.  I packed up and somewhere I noticed that the shackle on main's boom vang had simply unscrewed.  It lay there on the foredeck. I had tightened all the deck hardware before going on this trip but never thought to check those shackles.  Lucky that had not happened the day before in the middle of the Pamlico!  Double lucky that it just dropped on the deck and I noticed!!

As I ate my oatmeal, I decided I had enough of tacking and did not feel like motoring all the way down the ICW, so my plan was to  head back across the Pamlico to either go to Washington, NC or to Goose Creek State Park.  

When I left the small creek and turned north on the ICW, I found the light wind on my nose again.  Wait, how is the wind which is supposed to be from the SW, coming from the north?  And, I really wanted to go south anyway, so I turned around an proceeded south.  

Nice day for sailing the rivers

I figured either I would have an easy day sailing to where I really wanted to go (Bonner Bay) or the wind would shift and I would go back across the Pamlico.

Headed South on the ICW

I passed Dixon Creek, Campbell Creek and the Hobucken Coast Gaurd Station, finally entering the narrow ICW canal.  Mile after mile the wind was from N, E and W.  It was sometimes intermittent.  At one point the wind stopped completely, and the boat lost steerageway.  Before I could get the motor started, the wind returned from the opposite direction sending my gently into the side of the canal.  Before I actually ran into the stumps and marsh grass, I started the motor and spun the boat around.  A 'crazy Ivan' on the ICW, in full witness of at least one vessel. By the way,  90% of the traffic was going North, avoiding hurricane season to the south, I suppose.  That day I saw a bald eagle scoop a fish out of the water and several porpoises playing.  At 1:30pm, as I approached Gale Creek, where the ICW enters into a wide open stretch, the wind shifted from the south.  I wanted to head to Bonner Bay, about 4 nm further south.  The forecast had the winds increasing to 10-15kts and I just did not feel like another beat to windward.  So, I decided to just go with the flow, pun intended, and headed back up the canal.   I had a couple of nice anchorages to choose from and with 3-4 nm to go, I had plenty of time.  I read Steve Earley's excellent blog, Log of Spartina, and picked up several great tips for this trip including the anchorage at 'Faux Dixon Creek'.   

'Faux Dixon Creek'

This is a small, un-named creek, just a bit south of Dixon Creek.  The marsh around it is posted 'No Trespassing, hunting or fishing'.  No mention of anchoring and sleeping!  Which is what I did.  The meal that evening was a can of tuna fish mixed with Uncle Ben's Teriyaki Ready Rice which was actually delicious, to my great surprise.  

I finished eating at about 5:30pm and the weather was warm, and I might have contemplated a swim, but there were some issues with that.

Jellyfish visiting

Besides the jellyfish, I did see a snake go by and the bottom was pretty weedy.  So, no thanks to the swim, my little friends.  That night was without rain, but was nicely cool.  The stars were magnificent, although the mosquitos came out in full force, so I had to appreciate the stars from inside the tent, through the netting.  

The next day the weather was going to begin deteriorating with higher winds and thunderstorms.  Although I had supplies for another two nights, I decided to take the easy way out and head back to the boat ramp the next day.  Mistake #4.

Day 3 started so great.  The wind was light out of the SW, just as forecast.  I packed up and ate a light breakfast, leaving just before 8am.  I had a perfect beam reach, with the wind more westerly on the ICW.  I was going 2 then 3 then 4 then 5 knots, having a ball on the, now flat, Pamlico! Heading exactly to my goal.  I started thinking about just one more night and a bit of more upwind sailing.  After one hour of this special situation, the wind just stopped.  Then, there were a couple of nice gusts over the next hour.  Then No. Wind. At. All.  Nothing, nada, zip.  In the middle of the Pamlico River, with a long fetch to the West, there was no wind!  The Washington, NC weather conditions were at the time 10mph and when I checked later, they were 5-10 mph for the several hours I was on the Pamlico.  Motoring.  Slowly.  In the heat.  Oh, I had lots of friends in the form of bugs.  They were everywhere, but at least they were not biting, just irritating.  And it was hot.  The forecast had said in the 70s, but the official temperature was 85F.  I brought with me a 1 gallon garden sprayer, which was great because I would spray my clothes with water which would then evaporate, cooling me.  I used almost a gallon of water and drank 6 bottles of water before getting back to North Creek at 12:30.  Of course, as I reached the north edge of the Pamlico, there was a bit of wind, but looking back across the river, the water was smooth in most places in every direction.  I really expected that the wind would show up sometime in those 3 windless hours, but it was not to be.

I was very happy to not be rowing this stretch of the trip.  The Torqeedo proved very reliable.  The unit has a GPS built in and constantly shows how many remaining miles are left on the lithium battery. When I had 6 miles to go the charge remaining said I could go 8 miles at that speed.  Later, I had three miles to go and the charge remaining could get me 7 miles, so I sped up.  In this way I went a bit faster the further north I went.  I returned with 20% left on the battery.  (I had a spare battery also, just in case, but did not need to use it.)  One battery will last about 15nm at 2kts, and something like 45nm at 1kt.  The motor can also push the boat at hull speed, if necessary, but only for 30 minutes or so. I also like that the unit is waterproof, quiet, not smelly, and lightweight.  The battery and tiller disconnect by tilting them up.  The battery has a rod that you insert to lock it into place, but the tiller does not.  So, I have attached a lanyard to keep from losing the tiller arm, say if the mizzen sheet were to grab it.

Also, the motor mount I made for the Torqeedo worked very well.

DIY motor-mount on the rail

When the boat is level, the prop is about 3" under the water.  It is a couple inches deeper when I am sitting on the port side. Even in the light chop the prop did not cavitate if I was sitting  on the port side.  It did cavitate a bit when I went to the starboard bow to lift the anchor.  

Back at the dock

I finally reached the dock at 1pm.  My car said it was 97F, and it probably was that hot in the sun and while rigging down.  I was pretty exhausted and skipped lunch again until I was done (another Mistake?).  After de-rigging, eating lunch in the car with the AC running and then a quick, cold shower at the marina, I set off for the 3 hour drive home.

By the way, Conway at Potter's Marine charged me $5 a day for letting me park my car and trailer there and that included the launch fee.  For a nice safe place to leave the car, with a restroom and shower, that was a steal.  While I was there, Conway was setting up an RV camper for folks to stay in while at the marina.

Ready to roll

Some things that I learned:
1) Button up the cabin and prepare for seas and weather with foul weather gear at hand, even it it looks nice.  The foul weather trousers were necessary each morning since the rain/dew left the boat very wet to sit down on.  I placed my foul weather jacket next to me when leaving the anchorage each day, just in case.
2) Don't skip meals to save time. Causes crankiness and potentially bad judgement when stressed.
3) Lower the average velocity made good estimate by 50% when beating into the wind and lower even more, by 70%, if the waves are rough.  In a breeze where waves will get choppy, count on 1-1.2kts, no more.
4) Better still, don't fight the wind.  Remain flexible. There were places I could have gone down wind (at 5 kts!).  And I would have been there well before the wind and waves picked up, and well before dark.
5) Be fully prepared with bail out alternatives including 90deg to the wind and downwind.  An extra 2 nm upwind is maybe an extra 2 hours in certain conditions and could be the difference between day sailing and unprepared night sailing.  
6) Be fully prepared for zero wind.  I had the motor and extra battery. I had the spray bottle. I had plenty of drinking water. Alternatively, I could have sat at the anchorage, which might have been hotter still, but then I could have rigged a tarp and sat in the shade in less clothing and waited for the wind to pick up.
7) Tighten all the hardware, including the shackles, periodically. 
8) Try to arrange the trip so that the de-rigging is not done in the hot sun just before driving home.  I think next time I would like to end up at a hotel near a boat ramp (like perhaps Oriental) and de-rig the boat, take a shower, eat dinner and sleep before driving home.
9) And weather forecasting is still a black art.