Our friends Rob & Monica have a beautiful steel schooner, Interlude X, 50 feet on deck and 62 feet overall, yes that’s 12 feet of bowsprit. Interlude is traditionally rigged, main, foresail, staysail, jib & square sail, none furling. Not the easiest boat to sail or handle around a tight marina but very strongly built. The boat has nice short masts and shallow draft, perfect for the ICW and coastal/shoal waters.
Their plan is to keep the boat in Grenadines but they needed help sailing it down from Worton Creek on the upper Chesapeake to Nassau in the Bahamas, from there they could island hop another 1200 miles south to St Vincent.
Plan A was for 5 of us to depart the first week of December from Worton Creek, sail south to Norfolk, Virginia and then 800 miles direct to Nassau from there. Plan B was to motor south from Norfolk in the ICW if the weather was bad, then sail direct to Nassau from Beaufort, North Carolina, about 500 miles.
On board would be Rob the skipper and owner, Jayne and I, our friend Bob from Newfoundland and Tony, a Sail Canada offshore instructor. With Tony along we could work on qualifying for our Sail Canada Offshore crew certificates. We’d each need to do passage and weather plans, meal and watch plans as well as celestial sights and reductions, also DR log keeping and plotting 24 hours a day. That plus a written exam might earn us certificates.
It sounded challenging but a good chance to get some offshore experience plus training with a good crew and boat for our planned Azores/UK trip. The route would include all types of sailing: intensive 24 hour a day coastal navigation, idyllic ICW day sails, a Gulf Stream crossing and Atlantic blue water sailing.
We had a nice motor sail down Chesapeake in thankfully calm conditions, anchoring after dark and an overnight run. The offshore forecast from Norfolk was not good, so we spent a few easy and very scenic few days in the ICW south to Morehead City, North Carolina, where we re-assessed the weather.
It looked like a weather window would open in a couple of days, perfect, time to relax, service the boat and explore Morehead and Beaufort.
In clear, warm and calm conditions we left Beaufort and sailed east about 150 miles to cross to the Gulf Stream’s east side, the forecast fair winds did not appear so we spent 24 hours hove to in 10-15 foot waves with 20-30 knot south westerly winds. The direct course to Nassau being about 180 true.
Gradually the wind clocked north west, north then north east, pushing us south under square sail at 6-7-8+ knots. We gained 250-275 miles southing then began beam reaching in large swells as the wind continued swinging east.
The now east 15-25 winds made for difficult hand steering, 24 hours a day, Interlude has no autopilot. We did our best to watch keep, keep a three hour DR log and plot and get some sun sites in too. Meals proved difficult to prepare but the provision plan Jayne had made was great and we kept well fed, hydrated and in good spirits. I was thrown off the salon berth and got a black eye, we were all getting very tired.
Finally, 15 days since our departure from Chesapeake we were towed in to anchor in Nassau, our engine having quit the day before, tank gunk or something had stopped it from working along with our diesel stove!
Rob rowed us from Interlude to The Nassau Harbour Club in the rain, we flagged a cab to NAS, flew to YYZ and were home late on December 23rd, just in time to spend a quiet Christmas safely home in Ontario. We’d gained some valuable offshore sailing experience and Interlude was well positioned to sail south.
You guys are amazing! I love reading about your adventures. Looking forward to your next one!
Thanks Lorna, we’ll get together when we’re in for the boat show !
Awesome….excellent writing and photos…..we are so pleased everyone arrived safe ….C&P/OCC