Mouth of the Potomac - Nov 3

Yesterday’s drizzle stopped overnight and we woke to clear skies, a NW wind of 15-18 knots and 40 degrees. Brrrr!  We raised the main and motored past Cherry Point and out of Fishing Creek at 8:30. Reaching the main part of the Little Choptank River we opened up the genoa a bit and started sailing.  With the wind direction against us and to avoid spending a lot of time tacking out of the mouth of Little Choptank we rolled up the genoa and motored for a bit. Finally getting past the 6 foot shoals north of James Island and the many crab pot found in more shallow waters we could bear off and bring the genoa back out and head off on a broad reach down the Chesapeake, heading towards the Glebe River near the mouth of the Potomac River.

We really needed to sail straight downwind to get past Lookout Point on the north shore of the Potomac. With two sails out on the same side, a sailboat goes quite nicely with the wind hitting the boat 90 degrees around from straight ahead (abeam). As you steer the boat more and more downwind the wind hits the sails more toward the back of the boat (abaft the beam).  When the wind is more than 130 degrees around from the bow the genoa (front sail) has its wind blocked by the main sail. To make progress at this point there are a few choices. First is just don’t steer that far downwind.  Continue on a course that keeps both sails filled with wind. After a while turn the boat so that the wind some from the other side, zig-zagging along your course. Second is take down the spinnaker and put up a big spinnaker that is designed for sailing downwind. This is a lot of work, and Juno doesn’t have one. A third is to sail with either the mainsail or the genoa by themselves.  In winds over 15 the genoa by itself works fine for us. For us this day though we put up our whisker pole which is a 14’ aluminum pole that holds the genoa on the side opposite the main so that they can both catch the wind coming from behind. We don’t use this as often as Harry had hoped since up in Boston our sailing legs are usually shorter than worth the effort to put it up, so this was a good time to practice using it.

Under whisker pole we sailed until nearing the Potomac.  Our plan had been to go to The Glebe River but we were now at risk of not having enough daylight to easily see any crab pots. Instead we picked a spot under the north shore of the Potomac called Cornfield Harbor. While definitely not a harbor and a little exposed to the remaining waves coming down the Potomac we would be well sheltered from the north to north-east winds expected overnight.  After anchoring we noticed that while the wind held us pointing to the north, the remnants of waves coming down the Potomac were rocking us more that was really comfortable.  Harry used a technique from our Bahamas trip to rig a bridle that pulled our bow around to point into the waves. With this set we had dinner and eventually climbed into bed.  

 

 

Sailing down Chesapeake Bay with the whisker pole

An oyster dragger in Cornfield Harbor

Dragging for oysters