The Cosmos Adventure - News

Joe Dorr Report -- Virgin Islands to Chesapeake Bay

Cosmos

April 30, 2003

By some strange means, the creatures of the Great Barrier Reef relocated to the hulls of Cosmos during her 50-day stay in the Caribbean.  To remove all of this growth before starting our passage to Bermuda we stopped on our passage from St. John to St. Thomas, in Christmas Bay in the lee of Greater St. James Island. There I spent several hours diving and scraping.  I was quite exhausted when finished, but felt the effort would give us a faster time on our final long passage.

When we arrived in Christmas Bay, five boats were anchored in the large open bay.  While we were anchored, the bay filled with boats and families out for some fun on the water.  It was Easter Sunday on Christmas Bay.

George was interested in getting to Charlotte Amalie where he had spent a couple of weeks during a past cruise in the Islands.  He told me about Yacht Haven Marina and what a happening place it was, with all the hotel guests, sailors and power boaters gathered in the large facility with chandlers, sail makers, and restaurants.  He was a little concerned that it might not be quite the same place because The Moorings (a large charter boat company), had moved to another island.

We were shocked and disappointed with what we found.   Only thirty percent of the slips were occupied, and the piers were in great need of maintenance.  But we were most disappointed because the entire shore complex had shut down.  The once tropical pink hotel was faded to gray, many windows were boarded over, and the upper concrete decks that once gave guests access to their rooms were disintegrating and falling.  We later learned that the entire complex is slated for demolition and redevelopment.

Bob arrived at the airport east of Charlotte Amallie the next day and got settled in on Cosmos for the 1,580 run back to the Chesapeake Bay.  I wanted to do some snorkeling one more time before heading north and also wanted to give Bob a chance to do the same during his very short stay in the Islands.  We picked an empty mooring near Christmas Bay.  Within 20 minutes, three professional dive boats took the other two moorings.  Before we left, I counted 60 swimmers in the water.  We had a delightful forty-five minute swim over some lovely rock and coral formations and a good assortment of fish.  I think Bob really enjoyed himself.

At about 10:00 AM on the 23rd of April, we weighed anchor and headed for Bermuda.  We had just 13 days to travel 1,580 miles back to the Chesapeake and I wanted to spend at least two days in Bermuda to make the extra 200 miles worth the effort of going there.

After two days of motoring in very little wind, doing dozens of calculations in an attempt to encourage myself that we could go to Bermuda and still be back in the States in time for Brendan’s Opera Recital, I finally gave up and announced that we were going straight to the Chesapeake.  The Recital, at the Peabody Conservatory, is the culmination of Brendan’s years of study and I won’t allow myself to miss it. 

The crew was nice about the change in our sail plan (in sailor talk, that means they did not throw me off the boat) so I plotted our new course, changed the waypoints and took a heading directly for the Chesapeake Bay.

We have had a lot of exciting rides on Cosmos, including:

• a wet and bouncy nine days of sailing into the wind around Cuba to Panama,

•  sustained forty and fifty knot winds across the Indian Ocean,

• a ride in the “washing machine” out of Durban and on to East London, when only four out of nine boats made it with the rest turning back,

• flying wing and wing in high winds around the Cape of Good Hope. 

We had one more exhilarating ride.  I was on watch at 3:30 in the afternoon on the 27th (Elke’s Birthday).  Clouds formed around us -- not too dark, but certain to bring rain.  At about 3:40, I saw the rain coming from our port quarter and went below to close hatches.  When I came back on deck the rain had begun, and the wind increased from 10 knots to 25 knots and continued to strengthen.  We had been sailing directly down wind in light air, so the genoa was stretched out by the spinnaker pole to port and the full mainsail was over to the starboard side, wing and wing.  That is about 1,000 square feet (equivalent to 20+ double bed sheets) of sail as perpendicular to the wind as we could get them.

The wind was gaining so fast that we had no time to reduce sail or even take the spinnaker pole down.  I turned off the autopilot and began to steer so that I could make faster and larger rudder responses to wave gyrations and wind shifts than the autopilot might.  I kept one eye on the wind direction to keep it directly behind and the other eye on the wind speed to monitor its intensity. 

In a couple of minutes, the wind picked up to a steady 60 knots.  For about 15 seconds, the meter registered over 70 knots (over 80 miles per hour).  Cosmos took off like a 12-ton sled down a double diamond ski slope.  Before long, the waves grew and Cosmos’ bow shot through those with no problem.  As long as the rigging held, we would be OK.  As long as I kept Cosmos pointed directly down wind, I was confident the rigging would hold.  With double back-stays and shrouds, and with large chain plates holding them in place, the Prout rigging is built to take a heavy load.  Imagine the strength required to hold sails the size of 21 bed sheets squarely against an 80 mile per hour wind.

As minutes passed, the wind veered to the west, and then more northerly.  Keeping the wind on our stern, we were sailing away from our destination at great speed.  Thank goodness we had plenty of sea room and no shore around us.  I continued to steer manually for about 45 minutes.  Gradually, the wind reduced to 25 knots with gusts up to 35 and when it reduced to below 20, I decided it was time to get back on course.  With the autopilot back on, we furled the genoa, started both engines, turned into the wind and dropped the main.  We were pounding into the waves a bit, but it was a relief to have the sails down.   Cosmos had experienced this “white squall” and survived.

The next day, when George inspected the boat he found rivets lose in the spinnaker pole track.  Those rivets will be easy and inexpensive to replace.  The story would have been sad if any part of the rigging had broken from the pressures of the winds.  This short adventure represents quite a testament to this boat that Prout built, and a big payoff for the care we gave her on our voyage.

We motored into the wind for about an hour before we got out of the storm.  The wind shifted to the northeast at about 8 knots.  Back to motor sailing.  On to the Chesapeake.

Conditions around us got a bit eerie after the storm.  We started to see things that shouldn’t be 400 miles from land.  First a finch flew around Cosmos, and decided to land.  Within a couple of minutes, the bird was sitting on George’s finger.  We offered oatmeal and water, but the bird accepted very little.  He stayed for most of the day, and then flew off.  The next day the ocean turned into a lake and a looking glass.  Portuguese Men of War were floating all around Cosmos.  Debris was in the water all around.  A great blue heron flew by.   A large dragon fly flew into the lee of Cosmos and parked himself in mid-air.  He hovered in six different places around Cosmos for about fifteen minutes before flying out into the blue.  All of these must have been the result of the storm that had caught us so unaware two days earlier.

While the sea was smooth, a pod of dolphins came jumping out of the water to swim in the bow waves of Cosmos.  With nothing to see below the surface before the dolphins came, we had no idea how clear the water was -- between the dolphins and us clearer than glass.  Every marking, every move, every part of every dolphin could be seen as if there was no water, even when they were well below the surface.  This was certainly the best dolphin watching we have had on the entire circumnavigation.

I had been getting weather maps through the single sideband radio showing forecasted wind speed and wave heights over a large area.  A storm was forecasted to move across our path about the same time that we were due to cross the Gulf Stream.  Until the storm passed, the winds were forecasted to be directly behind us at up the 25 knots (perfect for fast sailing in the right direction).  It was decision time:  Do we fly wing and wing as long as the good winds last and hope they push us past the gulf stream before the storm hits, or do we go slow and hope the storm passes well in front of us?

The winds looked too good to pass up.  And besides, even if we went slowly, we might still be in the Gulf Stream when it reached us.  I decided to go for it.

The winds were great.  For two days, we averaged 6 to 8 knots.  Bob had been keeping track of our noon locations on a map of the Atlantic Ocean.  It was easy to see that the distances were longer between our locations over these two days than the earlier days of this passage.

We were fortunate.  All I could have done is guess what the best strategy might be and in this case it was a lucky guess.  Two days later, with the winds still strong behind us, the water temperature jumped from 70.1 degrees to 75.5 degrees -- a sure sign that we had entered the Gulf Stream.  Now the question was, would we make it out before the storm hit?

We started recording water temperature in the ship’s log.  For nine hours, the temperature continued to rise and then took its first drop.  If the drop in temperature meant we had reached the middle of the Gulf Stream, then we have nine more hours to get out.  But the charts indicated that we should be much closer to the west side of the Stream. 

Two hours after the first drop in water temperature, I could see a hard rain approaching from the south.  This time we got the sails down before the winds hit us.  The wind shifted to the north, ahead of our beam.  Immediately, the wave patterns changed.  Instead of the waves moving with the wind, they were being pushed back by the strong currents of the Gulf Stream.  The waves rose up out of the ocean, moved nowhere, and sank right back down where they rose.  Not just single waves, but sets of waves.  Cosmos moved over a cobblestone sea, where the cobbles were five feet tall.

We started an engine and continued.  At least the wind was only slightly ahead of our beam so we were able to make over five knots.  We closely watched the sea temperature continue to fall.  Over the next 5 hours, the water temperature continued to drop, and the waves took on a more standard form.  It was easy to recognize when we left the stream completely since the water temp dropped below 70. Suddenly Cosmos was riding on normal seas.

The strategy paid off.  The storm was forecasted for 35 knot winds and twelve-foot waves.  The maximum we saw was 25 knots and 5 feet.  Those were the fastest two days of our entire 11day passage.  The bouncy ride was worth it.

Well, we weren’t home free.  The storm passed, but it left winds from the wrong direction for another three hours.  We tacked back and forth not far off of Nags Head until the winds reduced to 5 knots.  We powered up both engines to get as far as possible before the start of northeast winds forecasted for Saturday.  It was Friday night and I wanted to be inside of the Chesapeake before they hit.

We made it.  It was wonderful to see the lights of Nags Head, Virginia Beach, the Cape Henry Light, and finally, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel lights showed across the mouth of the Chesapeake.   But we had one final and unexpected treat.  For about three hours, the wind blew from the east -- perfect for an entry to the Chesapeake.  I unfurled the genoa, shut down the engines and entered the Chesapeake under sail, the same way we left over two years ago.  I had a big smile on my face both times.  It is great to be so close to home.

With the winds from the north overdue, I decided not to push our luck any further and to spend at least one night in port in Virginia before pushing north.  We have taken a slip at Willoughby Harbor Marina just beyond the Bridge Tunnel to wait for better weather.  Tacking up-bay in northerlies is no fun, but we might have to.  The forecast is for winds from the north for the next four days.  We will keep a close watch on the forecast and pick the best window available to us.

Headed home.

Best regards,

Joe Dorr, Captain of the Cosmos