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Monthly Log
May, 2010
May, 2010
Sailing with the Penguin
S/V Rockhopper – May 2010
It has been a busy month for the crew of the Rockhopper. We finished the engine installation, reattached the headstay,
painted the dinghy, installed a new VHF radio and took care of the hundreds of details necessary to move back to Richmond.
We started the month in a motel in Yorktown – the Yorktown Motor Lodge – which was very popular with the Cox Cable
installation people. There were at least a dozen bucket trucks there every night and more on the weekends. Apparently,
contractors from all over were in the Yorktown area for cable installations. While the motel didn’t have all the luxuries of the
Homewood Suites where we had spent five weeks, it was clean, comfortable and definitely easier on the cruising kitty.
The last installation in the engine systems was the replacement of the old fuel system with new. Hoses and the bulkhead
mounted fuel filter had developed air leaks and the engine kept losing its prime. We replaced the Racor fuel filter with a new
Racor 900 MA unit. The principal benefit here was the cost of the filters themselves. The filter elements for the new unit are
about half the price of the old one. Of course, since they only have to be changed every 500 hours, it’ll be a while before we
see any real savings.
The headstay was a less successful project. We have replaced our old Hood unit, which had broken apart, with a new Spin-
Tec Triumph 2000. What we did not realize at the time was that the Spin-Tec company is a very small operation out in
California. In fact, at one point when I called for technical assistance, I was told that someone would have to call me back in
a day or two because there was no one there who could answer questions.
The other problem with the unit is that the various parts are held together with Gorilla Glue. I have not been able to get all of
the pieces to hold together correctly because the glue doesn’t work right – which could be in the way I am putting it together,
but I don’t see how. Also, the glue has a tendency to foam up and block the channel in which the sail is supposed to ride.
We had tried to put the new unit up ourselves and only succeeded in bending it in three places. I got replacement pieces
from the company and glued them in, but the connections still were bad. When I tried to put the head stay back together, I
didn’t get the Swage-Lok fitting together right and was uncomfortable with either cutting more or putting it up as-is. Since the
technician at Rigging Only, the company from which I bought some of the replacement rigging supplies from, heavily
recommended replacing the wire and turnbuckle anyway, since the rigging is at least ten years old – and probably much
older, I decided to have pros from Southern Bay Rigging do the replacement.
Once they looked at the Spin-Tec, they too were mystified by the idea of gluing it together. They said they could probably
get the new wire into the unit, but they weren’t sure and it would take awhile. Then, they pointed out that, even if they got it
on the wire, the glue in the tracks would prevent the sail from going up anyway. At that point, I gave in.
I told them to put the headstay up and give me a quote for re-rigging the entire boat, including a new roller furler unit. I don’t
know about the current unit – I am going to contact the company and see if there is a local company that can do the actual
installation, but I want to look at other options as well.
The new VHF radio is a Standard Horizon GX2100 with an integrated AIS receiver. For those of you not “in the know,” AIS is
a fairly new technology that automatically broadcasts a vessel’s name, speed and course. The distance it transmits is
relatively small, usually five to ten miles around a vessel, but that is far enough to be able to make decisions as to how close
the other vessel will get to you and what you should do about it. The technology is required for commercial vessels over a
certain size, and voluntary for recreational vessels.
I decided to go with just a receiver for a couple of reasons. First, I do not need to tell everyone where I am going; I just need
to know where the big boys are so that I can avoid them. I figure they aren’t going to be calling me and asking me what I
want to do, I’ll call them. Second, a receiver is much cheaper than a transmitter. Third, the more vessels out there
transmitting, the more cluttered the screen. I don’t need to be adding to the radio pollution.
The AIS receiver in the radio connects to the RayMarine Chartplotter I have in the cockpit and to the laptop computer I now
have at my navigation station, so the information is available everywhere I need it. I want to add a remote control
microphone to the set up so that I can control the radio from the cockpit, but these are on back-order pretty much across the
world, so that will have to wait.
One other nifty feature of the new radio is that it has a PA system built in and can act as an automatic fog horn. Since
adding a horn and automated foghorn system was already on my project list, this knocked off three things at one time. I love
it when a plan comes together.
We were finally able to make it to Richmond the weekend of the 22nd. We left Jordan Marine in Gloucester Point at about 4:
00 on Friday evening, which was the best time to catch a fair tide. The Northwest Branch of Sarah Creek is not deep and,
while I knew we had gotten in there, we were behind a boat that was leading us by about fifty feet. Knowing the depth fifty
feet in front of you is much better than knowing the depth five feet ahead of your keel. I had collected all of the “local
knowledge” that I could (and most of it was actually in agreement with each other – usually, if you ask five boaters the best
path out of an area, you get seven answers), so I was prepared as I could be, but I still was a little nervous that I would run
aground and have to call TowBoat to come pull me off a mud bar. I had been towed in, I really didn’t want to get towed out.
As we started to pull away from the pier, things went to hell quickly. A single screw inboard engine tends to be squirrely at
low speeds anyway. The rudder doesn’t really do anything until the boat has water flowing past it, so it has to be moving to
have steerage – but this was worse than normal. It seemed that when I went forward and turned the wheel to the left, the
boat went to the right and vice versa. However, I really couldn’t get up enough speed to tell because I kept circling into the
dock. Going backwards worked better, since the rudder had even less control there, so I backed out of the slip and let the
boat slide into a turn. Then, I started trying to go forward again, and off we went in the wrong direction. Of course, there
was also a strong current flow into the creek, so that was pushing us one way, and a strong breeze across the creek, so that
was pushing us another direction. However, even taking all of that into consideration, we still didn’t seem to be going the
right direction.
Our boat has hydraulic steering. A pump up at the cockpit turns left or right, forcing hydraulic fluid to a steering ram
connected to the top of the rudder. When the wheel is turned to the left, the fluid flows through the left hand pipe, down to
the ram, which is forced out, turning the rudder to the left and causing the boat to turn. EXCEPT….
In order to get to the engine room to put in the new engine, the floor of the cockpit, called the sole, had to be lifted out. In
order to do that, I had disconnected the hydraulic lines from the helm pump. I had not marked them in any way (error 1).
When the engine installation was done, the mechanic hooked the lines back up for me. I then refilled the system and purged
the lines. I then watched the rudder as Suzanne turned the wheel to make sure that everything turned the right direction
(error 2). I then never bothered to actually try moving the boat before getting underway for real (error 3).
The lines had been hooked up backward. What I saw the rudder doing was actually the reverse of what it should have been
doing, but since I was looking at it from the wrong side (above and in front), it looked right to me. So, when we actually got
underway, the boat steered in reverse. When I wanted to go left, I had to turn to the right.
It only took me a few minutes to figure this out, but then I was faced with a real decision. Did I pull back into the boatyard
and try to fix the problem, knowing that I might miss the tide I wanted (did I mention that Suzanne had a doctor’s appointment
in Richmond at 8:30 on Monday)? Did I continue back to Richmond with the steering reversed, with the possibility that, in an
emergency, Suzanne or I might spin the wheel the wrong direction and run the boat into something? I decided on a third
option – I needed to pull into the York River Yacht Haven – near the mouth of the creek and past the scary “thin water”
section – to pick up fuel anyway. While I was there, I would quickly change the connections and repressurize the system.
Now, this actually violates one of the sacred laws of boating. You do NOT do maintenance on a fuel pier! You especially do
not do maintenance on a fuel pier on a Friday evening. People are trying to get fuel and get out and a forty-five foot boat
on a one hundred foot fuel pier takes up a lot of space.
Luckily for us, the fuel dock was unmanned and only one other small boat wanted fuel while we were there. The repair did
not go quite as smoothly as I would have liked – one of the flared copper fittings would not reengage when we tried to put it
back together. We eventually had to take the wheel off, pull the helm pump out of its fittings and reconnect the flared tubing
connections, then reassemble everything. We quickly re-pressurized the system and, since we had not lost a lot of hydraulic
fluid, the system worked with only a small amount of “sponginess.” As the weekend went on, the sponginess got a little
worse, but it never got to the point where I was uncomfortable about the steering.
We finally got underway from YRYH at 5:00 and were off into the York River. As we made the turn into the Chesapeake Bay,
the wind was from the south and the current was from the north, so the ride got a little bumpy and cool. In fact, long before
sundown it reached the point that both Suzanne and I were in jackets and Suzanne’s ears were covered with a scarf.
The original plan was for us to be in the river by 5:00 so that we could be in the small cove next to Fort Monroe by 9:00.
Because of our unplanned repair, we ended up being about fifteen minutes behind schedule and, although we did have a
slight current from behind to help speed us along, we got into the cove well after dark. In addition, I discovered that the
Lewmar anchor windlass that had worked fine on the way down to the boat yard was now AWOL. That meant I would have to
put the anchor down (and pull it back up) by hand.
Our primary anchor is a 45 pound plow anchor on two hundred feet of chain. It is an excellent anchor and I have no doubt it
would hold us in a blow. However, having pulled it up by hand twice before, I was not in a hurry to do this again. Our other
main anchor is a 21 pound Fortress fluke style which, according to the brochures, should be more than enough to hold us in
place. However, this anchor was not currently attached to any line and I had no chain for it. I had plenty of line available, so
that wasn’t a problem and I had it rigged and ready to go before dark. However, never having used it before, I was less than
thrilled with the idea of using it for the first time with an untried anchor line.
We motored into the cove to find that there were three boats there before us. One was a large cabin cruiser with a lot of
windage, one was a cruising catamaran and the third was a monohull sailboat about 30 feet long. Great, I thought, all three
of these are going to sit differently in the wind and current – and the tide is going to shift at some point.
We originally put the anchor down in a position about equal distance from all three other boats, so that we formed a rough
square. Unfortunately, we immediately started swinging in the current and ended up very close to the cat and the sailboat,
which made us uncomfortable. We pulled up the anchor and moved away from all three, putting us just off the main
channel. When you look at pictures of this cove, taken from the air, it looks huge, but it doesn’t take a lot of boats to make it
feel crowded.
This was the first night on the boat since we had put in the new battery bank, which should significantly increase the ability to
hold power during the night. However, should and do are two different things. The engine has a dedicated starting battery
and I have a 2KW Honda generator, but I live in fear that the power will die during the night, and the anchor light will go out,
leaving us in the dark and at the mercy of some idiot driving a speedboat into us. It may not be a rational fear, but what
fears truly are?
So, to review – we are spending our first night “on the hook” in over two years, not counting the night we were towed down
here, the anchor is one that I have never used before, the line on the anchor is not one that I would have chosen first for the
use (it was double braid instead of three strand), I am still not sure that the batteries will last through the night and we are
closer to the main channel than I would be thrilled with.
We went to bed about 10:00 and I was back up at 3:00. I had decided that we would get underway at 5:00, since that was
just before sunrise and the sky should be light. From 3:00 to 4:00, I programmed the day’s trip into the Chartplotter,
reviewed the operating instructions for the new radio and set in the channels I wanted it to scan, checked e-mail and read
the news and made sure the anchor was still holding. At 4:15, I went back to bed. At 4:45, I gave up on sleeping and got up
to start the day. Suzanne stirred and I told her to stay in bed, that I would get us underway and she could come up when
she felt like it.
I did the engine checks, added a little coolant to the heat exchanger and fired up the engine. I checked the battery bank
and still had well over fifty percent of the power available. I left the engine running in neutral and went forward to pull the
anchor up. The line came up easily, but the anchor itself was down tight. I had had nothing to worry about, that anchor was
going NOWHERE. I tugged and heaved, but got nowhere. Finally, I tied the anchor line off to one of the bow cleats and
went back to the cockpit. I put the boat in gear and slowly gave it a little fuel. She started moving forward, shuddered as the
anchor line came tight and then started forward again. I dropped her back into neutral and went forward to pull the anchor
aboard. There is nothing like a little pull in the wrong direction to pull an anchor free. When I got it back on deck, it was
covered with a sticky gray-black mud that felt like cold, wet cornstarch. I will never doubt that anchor again and I am even
happier with that anchorage.
We pulled out of the anchorage and headed toward the James River Bridge, crossing over the Hampton Roads Bridge-
Tunnel and the Monitor-Merrimack Bridge-Tunnel along the way. I am always fascinated as I cross the stretch of river where
the two ironclad warships squared off. It is in clear view from the Hampton-Newport News area, the Norfolk waterfront and
the Suffolk shoreline. What a day that must have been when those two monsters fought. To stand on the shore and see
things that should not have been – ships with no sails and cannonballs bouncing off of them – must have been terrifying to
the people who had no idea how their life would change if the wrong vessel lost. The fact that the battle was fought to a
draw was probably a disappointment to the designers and Navy men, but the civilians probably drew a small breath of relief.
After getting the bridge lifted at the James River Bridge, we proceeded up river, past the Ghost Fleet, which gets smaller
every time we pass. I wonder how long that will continue to be a marker along the route. Busch Gardens has added a new
roller coaster since the last time we powered by and it has altered the skyline, giving us another monument to look for. We
crossed between the ferries that run between Scotland and Jamestown, while simultaneously passing a tug headed down
river with a half-dozen barges pushed ahead of it. As is my policy, I contacted the tug and confirmed that we would pass
port-to-port. Rockhopper is too slow to dance with tugboats and I prefer to follow the letter of the law when it comes to
vessel communications, rather than just the spirit. More on this idea later.
Past the mouth of the Chickahominy River, the James starts to narrow and the current increased. We had already been
fighting a half knot current, but our speed over the ground dropped until we were going a full 1.5 knots slower than our
speed over the ground. It was like walking the wrong way on an escalator. For the most part, we just accepted the facts and
trucked along at five knots. Occasionally, we would come to a bend in the river where we would get into a spot where the
current wasn’t as strong and our speed over ground would shoot up, but it just meant that we would get back into the main
channel that much faster.
We slid under the raised Benjamin Harrison Bridge at about 3:45, and cu in close to the docks in Hopewell. The channel in
that area is really narrow and, although the water area is wide, the river is very shallow. Birds can be seen walking in the
mud in the middle of the river at low tide, which this was. After we were two miles past the bridge, we looked back and
realized that there was another tug coming under the bridge behind us. We monitored his progress for the next thirty
minutes or so and he seemed to be very slowly catching up with us.
I assumed he was keeping his speed down because of all of the other traffic in the area. Small family ski boats zipping back
and forth with kids on tubes, bass boats and jon boats adrift in the middle of the channel cheerfully fishing and long, sleek
racing boats flying up and down the river, going nowhere at a huge cost in fuel (I believe that these boats tend to use more
fuel going from their slip to the fuel docks than I will use all day) all converged in front of the tug, which probably would have
taken a mile or two to stop with all power astern. If I was creating a “boater safety course,” I would set half a day aside simply
to explain the physics of tugboats and why, pulling your kid on a tube in front of a fully loaded barge, just so he can feel the
bow wave is not a good idea. I don’t believe in creating man-made laws to prevent this sort of stupidity, simply because I
believe the laws of physics and nature handle it quite well, thanks.
After thirty minutes or so, it became clear that the tug following us was going to eventually catch up with us, so I called him
on the radio. He came back right away and said that he was the Richard Burton. I explained where we were and asked him
what he would like to do. He said he was headed for the Deepwater Terminals, which were about six miles further up river
from where we were going to spend the night. I explained that we intended to anchor about two miles further up river and
that we would like to let him pass us before we got there. He agreed and said that he would come up our port side, since we
were already on that side of the river.
Maritime law is clear that the boat being overtaken is supposed to maintain course and speed, while the overtaking boat
maneuvers around her. That is, of course, unless the captains of the two vessels agree beforehand to do something else.
It would have been stupid of us to try to force the Richard Burton to go around us, so at the next wide bend in the river, we
slid over to the right as far as we could and cut our speed to the slowest we could. Since the current was still flowing at us,
we were able to get our speed down to about one knot over the ground, while still having more than two knots of current
over the rudder. This gave us plenty of ability to maneuver while keeping us out of the Burton’s way. He trucked on past us
and we fell into the slick water behind him, letting him slowly pull away from us. He called back to say that he appreciated
our maneuver, that he would be heading back downriver the next morning about 6:00 and if there was anything they could
do for us, all we had to do was ask. We thanked him and told him to have a safe journey. He called back the same and
dropped off the radio.
There is a point here. Running a tugboat on the upper James River is like driving a tractor trailer on a residential street
while dozens of kids on tricycles play in front of you. You know that the potential for disaster is always high and you know
that, when it happens, it is going to be seen as at least partly your fault. It has to be an incredibly stressful job. So, anytime
a boat operator calls you and confirms that he is aware of you and is going to maneuver to let you have the right-of-way, it
makes your day a little less stressful. It doesn’t take long and I am sure that it would be overwhelming if everyone called to
say “hey, I am going to stay out of your way,” but every time I do it, I find that the tug captains are appreciative and willing to
do whatever they can to make things safe and comfortable.
After we let the Richard Burton slip away, we finally came into sight of the Varina-Enon Bridge. Since we got to that location
just an hour or so before low tide, we knew that it would be six hours or so before we could get over the mud bar in the little
creek where our home marina sits. Rather than risk getting stuck in the mud, we had decided to anchor in the river for the
night. Pulling off to the side of the river, we circled around to find a spot out of the channel but with deep enough water that,
when the tide changed and we shifted around, we wouldn’t get stuck.
This time, I decided to put the plow anchor and chain down. I wanted to get some of the chain out of the chain locker so that
I could get a look at the windlass itself. I wanted to check the electrical connections at the windlass, since I knew I had power
at the battery end. My hope was that I would figure out what the problem was, fix it and be able to bring the anchor back up
with the windlass.
We anchored in about 15 feet of water and I put out about 90 feet of chain. The tidal range was less than three feet in this
area, so at high tide, I would have a scope (the ratio of the length of chain to the depth of water) of about 5 to 1, which is
light for a storm in an open harbor, but more than adequate for all chain in a very protected river anchorage. At the same
time, I didn’t have so much chain out that, at low tide, the boat would run into the mud along the shore as it swung. We shut
down the engine and fired up the generator to recharge batteries for the evening. This also let us run the electric water
heater, although there wasn’t enough power to also run the air conditioner and the air was thick and muggy. Being on the
anchor is much more pleasant when there is enough open water to get a good breeze going through the boat. Fans can
only do so much.
I took a shower while Suzanne made spaghetti for dinner and we sat in the cockpit to eat it. The day had been a long one –
thirteen hours underway – and I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep the night before, so it wasn’t long before we crawled into bed to
watch some television and drift off.
I actually slept until about 6:00 and woke refreshed. Suzanne slept on, so once again, I read the comics and the news,
checked e-mail and prepared for the day. I continued trying to troubleshoot the connections between the GPS, the AIS and
the radio until it was time to get underway to catch the tide into the marina.
We crossed into the creek about 10:30 and were tied up before 11:00. After two long months and tens of thousands of
dollars, we were finally home again.
Our new slip is wonderful. We are able to be alongside the pier, rather than tied in at the stern, so we can actually work on
the boat from the pier. We have DEEP water. At low tide, we still have more than 9 feet showing on the depth finder, which
means we have at least five feet before we touch bottom (in our old slip, we spend a lot of time buried a foot or more in the
mud). We have access to four electrical sockets, two of them boat connections and two of them regular ones. The only
problem is that we seem to be more of a bug haven than we were in the middle of the marina, but we are looking into a bug
zapper or something similar to combat this problem.
I declared a one-week moratorium on boat projects. The last week of May, the only boat jobs are the ones that are
necessary for daily living (installing the deck mounted air conditioners, for example) or emergencies (none). I contacted the
engine mechanic about a few minor questions and the electronics manufacturer. The electronics guy, who is in New
Zealand, is the most responsive – giving me detailed information on what the connection problems are and how to fix them,
even providing information that I can’t get from the other “big guy” electronics manufacturers – not even on-line.
We are in for the long haul now and significantly closer to the day when we can get away permanently. The next big project
– re-rigging the boat. I can’t say where we will be doing that, but I can definitely say where we will not. When the bill arrives
and it is three and a half times larger than the estimate, you really tend to lose faith in the company.
Until next month, fair winds…
S/V Rockhopper – May 2010
It has been a busy month for the crew of the Rockhopper. We finished the engine installation, reattached the headstay,
painted the dinghy, installed a new VHF radio and took care of the hundreds of details necessary to move back to Richmond.
We started the month in a motel in Yorktown – the Yorktown Motor Lodge – which was very popular with the Cox Cable
installation people. There were at least a dozen bucket trucks there every night and more on the weekends. Apparently,
contractors from all over were in the Yorktown area for cable installations. While the motel didn’t have all the luxuries of the
Homewood Suites where we had spent five weeks, it was clean, comfortable and definitely easier on the cruising kitty.
The last installation in the engine systems was the replacement of the old fuel system with new. Hoses and the bulkhead
mounted fuel filter had developed air leaks and the engine kept losing its prime. We replaced the Racor fuel filter with a new
Racor 900 MA unit. The principal benefit here was the cost of the filters themselves. The filter elements for the new unit are
about half the price of the old one. Of course, since they only have to be changed every 500 hours, it’ll be a while before we
see any real savings.
The headstay was a less successful project. We have replaced our old Hood unit, which had broken apart, with a new Spin-
Tec Triumph 2000. What we did not realize at the time was that the Spin-Tec company is a very small operation out in
California. In fact, at one point when I called for technical assistance, I was told that someone would have to call me back in
a day or two because there was no one there who could answer questions.
The other problem with the unit is that the various parts are held together with Gorilla Glue. I have not been able to get all of
the pieces to hold together correctly because the glue doesn’t work right – which could be in the way I am putting it together,
but I don’t see how. Also, the glue has a tendency to foam up and block the channel in which the sail is supposed to ride.
We had tried to put the new unit up ourselves and only succeeded in bending it in three places. I got replacement pieces
from the company and glued them in, but the connections still were bad. When I tried to put the head stay back together, I
didn’t get the Swage-Lok fitting together right and was uncomfortable with either cutting more or putting it up as-is. Since the
technician at Rigging Only, the company from which I bought some of the replacement rigging supplies from, heavily
recommended replacing the wire and turnbuckle anyway, since the rigging is at least ten years old – and probably much
older, I decided to have pros from Southern Bay Rigging do the replacement.
Once they looked at the Spin-Tec, they too were mystified by the idea of gluing it together. They said they could probably
get the new wire into the unit, but they weren’t sure and it would take awhile. Then, they pointed out that, even if they got it
on the wire, the glue in the tracks would prevent the sail from going up anyway. At that point, I gave in.
I told them to put the headstay up and give me a quote for re-rigging the entire boat, including a new roller furler unit. I don’t
know about the current unit – I am going to contact the company and see if there is a local company that can do the actual
installation, but I want to look at other options as well.
The new VHF radio is a Standard Horizon GX2100 with an integrated AIS receiver. For those of you not “in the know,” AIS is
a fairly new technology that automatically broadcasts a vessel’s name, speed and course. The distance it transmits is
relatively small, usually five to ten miles around a vessel, but that is far enough to be able to make decisions as to how close
the other vessel will get to you and what you should do about it. The technology is required for commercial vessels over a
certain size, and voluntary for recreational vessels.
I decided to go with just a receiver for a couple of reasons. First, I do not need to tell everyone where I am going; I just need
to know where the big boys are so that I can avoid them. I figure they aren’t going to be calling me and asking me what I
want to do, I’ll call them. Second, a receiver is much cheaper than a transmitter. Third, the more vessels out there
transmitting, the more cluttered the screen. I don’t need to be adding to the radio pollution.
The AIS receiver in the radio connects to the RayMarine Chartplotter I have in the cockpit and to the laptop computer I now
have at my navigation station, so the information is available everywhere I need it. I want to add a remote control
microphone to the set up so that I can control the radio from the cockpit, but these are on back-order pretty much across the
world, so that will have to wait.
One other nifty feature of the new radio is that it has a PA system built in and can act as an automatic fog horn. Since
adding a horn and automated foghorn system was already on my project list, this knocked off three things at one time. I love
it when a plan comes together.
We were finally able to make it to Richmond the weekend of the 22nd. We left Jordan Marine in Gloucester Point at about 4:
00 on Friday evening, which was the best time to catch a fair tide. The Northwest Branch of Sarah Creek is not deep and,
while I knew we had gotten in there, we were behind a boat that was leading us by about fifty feet. Knowing the depth fifty
feet in front of you is much better than knowing the depth five feet ahead of your keel. I had collected all of the “local
knowledge” that I could (and most of it was actually in agreement with each other – usually, if you ask five boaters the best
path out of an area, you get seven answers), so I was prepared as I could be, but I still was a little nervous that I would run
aground and have to call TowBoat to come pull me off a mud bar. I had been towed in, I really didn’t want to get towed out.
As we started to pull away from the pier, things went to hell quickly. A single screw inboard engine tends to be squirrely at
low speeds anyway. The rudder doesn’t really do anything until the boat has water flowing past it, so it has to be moving to
have steerage – but this was worse than normal. It seemed that when I went forward and turned the wheel to the left, the
boat went to the right and vice versa. However, I really couldn’t get up enough speed to tell because I kept circling into the
dock. Going backwards worked better, since the rudder had even less control there, so I backed out of the slip and let the
boat slide into a turn. Then, I started trying to go forward again, and off we went in the wrong direction. Of course, there
was also a strong current flow into the creek, so that was pushing us one way, and a strong breeze across the creek, so that
was pushing us another direction. However, even taking all of that into consideration, we still didn’t seem to be going the
right direction.
Our boat has hydraulic steering. A pump up at the cockpit turns left or right, forcing hydraulic fluid to a steering ram
connected to the top of the rudder. When the wheel is turned to the left, the fluid flows through the left hand pipe, down to
the ram, which is forced out, turning the rudder to the left and causing the boat to turn. EXCEPT….
In order to get to the engine room to put in the new engine, the floor of the cockpit, called the sole, had to be lifted out. In
order to do that, I had disconnected the hydraulic lines from the helm pump. I had not marked them in any way (error 1).
When the engine installation was done, the mechanic hooked the lines back up for me. I then refilled the system and purged
the lines. I then watched the rudder as Suzanne turned the wheel to make sure that everything turned the right direction
(error 2). I then never bothered to actually try moving the boat before getting underway for real (error 3).
The lines had been hooked up backward. What I saw the rudder doing was actually the reverse of what it should have been
doing, but since I was looking at it from the wrong side (above and in front), it looked right to me. So, when we actually got
underway, the boat steered in reverse. When I wanted to go left, I had to turn to the right.
It only took me a few minutes to figure this out, but then I was faced with a real decision. Did I pull back into the boatyard
and try to fix the problem, knowing that I might miss the tide I wanted (did I mention that Suzanne had a doctor’s appointment
in Richmond at 8:30 on Monday)? Did I continue back to Richmond with the steering reversed, with the possibility that, in an
emergency, Suzanne or I might spin the wheel the wrong direction and run the boat into something? I decided on a third
option – I needed to pull into the York River Yacht Haven – near the mouth of the creek and past the scary “thin water”
section – to pick up fuel anyway. While I was there, I would quickly change the connections and repressurize the system.
Now, this actually violates one of the sacred laws of boating. You do NOT do maintenance on a fuel pier! You especially do
not do maintenance on a fuel pier on a Friday evening. People are trying to get fuel and get out and a forty-five foot boat
on a one hundred foot fuel pier takes up a lot of space.
Luckily for us, the fuel dock was unmanned and only one other small boat wanted fuel while we were there. The repair did
not go quite as smoothly as I would have liked – one of the flared copper fittings would not reengage when we tried to put it
back together. We eventually had to take the wheel off, pull the helm pump out of its fittings and reconnect the flared tubing
connections, then reassemble everything. We quickly re-pressurized the system and, since we had not lost a lot of hydraulic
fluid, the system worked with only a small amount of “sponginess.” As the weekend went on, the sponginess got a little
worse, but it never got to the point where I was uncomfortable about the steering.
We finally got underway from YRYH at 5:00 and were off into the York River. As we made the turn into the Chesapeake Bay,
the wind was from the south and the current was from the north, so the ride got a little bumpy and cool. In fact, long before
sundown it reached the point that both Suzanne and I were in jackets and Suzanne’s ears were covered with a scarf.
The original plan was for us to be in the river by 5:00 so that we could be in the small cove next to Fort Monroe by 9:00.
Because of our unplanned repair, we ended up being about fifteen minutes behind schedule and, although we did have a
slight current from behind to help speed us along, we got into the cove well after dark. In addition, I discovered that the
Lewmar anchor windlass that had worked fine on the way down to the boat yard was now AWOL. That meant I would have to
put the anchor down (and pull it back up) by hand.
Our primary anchor is a 45 pound plow anchor on two hundred feet of chain. It is an excellent anchor and I have no doubt it
would hold us in a blow. However, having pulled it up by hand twice before, I was not in a hurry to do this again. Our other
main anchor is a 21 pound Fortress fluke style which, according to the brochures, should be more than enough to hold us in
place. However, this anchor was not currently attached to any line and I had no chain for it. I had plenty of line available, so
that wasn’t a problem and I had it rigged and ready to go before dark. However, never having used it before, I was less than
thrilled with the idea of using it for the first time with an untried anchor line.
We motored into the cove to find that there were three boats there before us. One was a large cabin cruiser with a lot of
windage, one was a cruising catamaran and the third was a monohull sailboat about 30 feet long. Great, I thought, all three
of these are going to sit differently in the wind and current – and the tide is going to shift at some point.
We originally put the anchor down in a position about equal distance from all three other boats, so that we formed a rough
square. Unfortunately, we immediately started swinging in the current and ended up very close to the cat and the sailboat,
which made us uncomfortable. We pulled up the anchor and moved away from all three, putting us just off the main
channel. When you look at pictures of this cove, taken from the air, it looks huge, but it doesn’t take a lot of boats to make it
feel crowded.
This was the first night on the boat since we had put in the new battery bank, which should significantly increase the ability to
hold power during the night. However, should and do are two different things. The engine has a dedicated starting battery
and I have a 2KW Honda generator, but I live in fear that the power will die during the night, and the anchor light will go out,
leaving us in the dark and at the mercy of some idiot driving a speedboat into us. It may not be a rational fear, but what
fears truly are?
So, to review – we are spending our first night “on the hook” in over two years, not counting the night we were towed down
here, the anchor is one that I have never used before, the line on the anchor is not one that I would have chosen first for the
use (it was double braid instead of three strand), I am still not sure that the batteries will last through the night and we are
closer to the main channel than I would be thrilled with.
We went to bed about 10:00 and I was back up at 3:00. I had decided that we would get underway at 5:00, since that was
just before sunrise and the sky should be light. From 3:00 to 4:00, I programmed the day’s trip into the Chartplotter,
reviewed the operating instructions for the new radio and set in the channels I wanted it to scan, checked e-mail and read
the news and made sure the anchor was still holding. At 4:15, I went back to bed. At 4:45, I gave up on sleeping and got up
to start the day. Suzanne stirred and I told her to stay in bed, that I would get us underway and she could come up when
she felt like it.
I did the engine checks, added a little coolant to the heat exchanger and fired up the engine. I checked the battery bank
and still had well over fifty percent of the power available. I left the engine running in neutral and went forward to pull the
anchor up. The line came up easily, but the anchor itself was down tight. I had had nothing to worry about, that anchor was
going NOWHERE. I tugged and heaved, but got nowhere. Finally, I tied the anchor line off to one of the bow cleats and
went back to the cockpit. I put the boat in gear and slowly gave it a little fuel. She started moving forward, shuddered as the
anchor line came tight and then started forward again. I dropped her back into neutral and went forward to pull the anchor
aboard. There is nothing like a little pull in the wrong direction to pull an anchor free. When I got it back on deck, it was
covered with a sticky gray-black mud that felt like cold, wet cornstarch. I will never doubt that anchor again and I am even
happier with that anchorage.
We pulled out of the anchorage and headed toward the James River Bridge, crossing over the Hampton Roads Bridge-
Tunnel and the Monitor-Merrimack Bridge-Tunnel along the way. I am always fascinated as I cross the stretch of river where
the two ironclad warships squared off. It is in clear view from the Hampton-Newport News area, the Norfolk waterfront and
the Suffolk shoreline. What a day that must have been when those two monsters fought. To stand on the shore and see
things that should not have been – ships with no sails and cannonballs bouncing off of them – must have been terrifying to
the people who had no idea how their life would change if the wrong vessel lost. The fact that the battle was fought to a
draw was probably a disappointment to the designers and Navy men, but the civilians probably drew a small breath of relief.
After getting the bridge lifted at the James River Bridge, we proceeded up river, past the Ghost Fleet, which gets smaller
every time we pass. I wonder how long that will continue to be a marker along the route. Busch Gardens has added a new
roller coaster since the last time we powered by and it has altered the skyline, giving us another monument to look for. We
crossed between the ferries that run between Scotland and Jamestown, while simultaneously passing a tug headed down
river with a half-dozen barges pushed ahead of it. As is my policy, I contacted the tug and confirmed that we would pass
port-to-port. Rockhopper is too slow to dance with tugboats and I prefer to follow the letter of the law when it comes to
vessel communications, rather than just the spirit. More on this idea later.
Past the mouth of the Chickahominy River, the James starts to narrow and the current increased. We had already been
fighting a half knot current, but our speed over the ground dropped until we were going a full 1.5 knots slower than our
speed over the ground. It was like walking the wrong way on an escalator. For the most part, we just accepted the facts and
trucked along at five knots. Occasionally, we would come to a bend in the river where we would get into a spot where the
current wasn’t as strong and our speed over ground would shoot up, but it just meant that we would get back into the main
channel that much faster.
We slid under the raised Benjamin Harrison Bridge at about 3:45, and cu in close to the docks in Hopewell. The channel in
that area is really narrow and, although the water area is wide, the river is very shallow. Birds can be seen walking in the
mud in the middle of the river at low tide, which this was. After we were two miles past the bridge, we looked back and
realized that there was another tug coming under the bridge behind us. We monitored his progress for the next thirty
minutes or so and he seemed to be very slowly catching up with us.
I assumed he was keeping his speed down because of all of the other traffic in the area. Small family ski boats zipping back
and forth with kids on tubes, bass boats and jon boats adrift in the middle of the channel cheerfully fishing and long, sleek
racing boats flying up and down the river, going nowhere at a huge cost in fuel (I believe that these boats tend to use more
fuel going from their slip to the fuel docks than I will use all day) all converged in front of the tug, which probably would have
taken a mile or two to stop with all power astern. If I was creating a “boater safety course,” I would set half a day aside simply
to explain the physics of tugboats and why, pulling your kid on a tube in front of a fully loaded barge, just so he can feel the
bow wave is not a good idea. I don’t believe in creating man-made laws to prevent this sort of stupidity, simply because I
believe the laws of physics and nature handle it quite well, thanks.
After thirty minutes or so, it became clear that the tug following us was going to eventually catch up with us, so I called him
on the radio. He came back right away and said that he was the Richard Burton. I explained where we were and asked him
what he would like to do. He said he was headed for the Deepwater Terminals, which were about six miles further up river
from where we were going to spend the night. I explained that we intended to anchor about two miles further up river and
that we would like to let him pass us before we got there. He agreed and said that he would come up our port side, since we
were already on that side of the river.
Maritime law is clear that the boat being overtaken is supposed to maintain course and speed, while the overtaking boat
maneuvers around her. That is, of course, unless the captains of the two vessels agree beforehand to do something else.
It would have been stupid of us to try to force the Richard Burton to go around us, so at the next wide bend in the river, we
slid over to the right as far as we could and cut our speed to the slowest we could. Since the current was still flowing at us,
we were able to get our speed down to about one knot over the ground, while still having more than two knots of current
over the rudder. This gave us plenty of ability to maneuver while keeping us out of the Burton’s way. He trucked on past us
and we fell into the slick water behind him, letting him slowly pull away from us. He called back to say that he appreciated
our maneuver, that he would be heading back downriver the next morning about 6:00 and if there was anything they could
do for us, all we had to do was ask. We thanked him and told him to have a safe journey. He called back the same and
dropped off the radio.
There is a point here. Running a tugboat on the upper James River is like driving a tractor trailer on a residential street
while dozens of kids on tricycles play in front of you. You know that the potential for disaster is always high and you know
that, when it happens, it is going to be seen as at least partly your fault. It has to be an incredibly stressful job. So, anytime
a boat operator calls you and confirms that he is aware of you and is going to maneuver to let you have the right-of-way, it
makes your day a little less stressful. It doesn’t take long and I am sure that it would be overwhelming if everyone called to
say “hey, I am going to stay out of your way,” but every time I do it, I find that the tug captains are appreciative and willing to
do whatever they can to make things safe and comfortable.
After we let the Richard Burton slip away, we finally came into sight of the Varina-Enon Bridge. Since we got to that location
just an hour or so before low tide, we knew that it would be six hours or so before we could get over the mud bar in the little
creek where our home marina sits. Rather than risk getting stuck in the mud, we had decided to anchor in the river for the
night. Pulling off to the side of the river, we circled around to find a spot out of the channel but with deep enough water that,
when the tide changed and we shifted around, we wouldn’t get stuck.
This time, I decided to put the plow anchor and chain down. I wanted to get some of the chain out of the chain locker so that
I could get a look at the windlass itself. I wanted to check the electrical connections at the windlass, since I knew I had power
at the battery end. My hope was that I would figure out what the problem was, fix it and be able to bring the anchor back up
with the windlass.
We anchored in about 15 feet of water and I put out about 90 feet of chain. The tidal range was less than three feet in this
area, so at high tide, I would have a scope (the ratio of the length of chain to the depth of water) of about 5 to 1, which is
light for a storm in an open harbor, but more than adequate for all chain in a very protected river anchorage. At the same
time, I didn’t have so much chain out that, at low tide, the boat would run into the mud along the shore as it swung. We shut
down the engine and fired up the generator to recharge batteries for the evening. This also let us run the electric water
heater, although there wasn’t enough power to also run the air conditioner and the air was thick and muggy. Being on the
anchor is much more pleasant when there is enough open water to get a good breeze going through the boat. Fans can
only do so much.
I took a shower while Suzanne made spaghetti for dinner and we sat in the cockpit to eat it. The day had been a long one –
thirteen hours underway – and I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep the night before, so it wasn’t long before we crawled into bed to
watch some television and drift off.
I actually slept until about 6:00 and woke refreshed. Suzanne slept on, so once again, I read the comics and the news,
checked e-mail and prepared for the day. I continued trying to troubleshoot the connections between the GPS, the AIS and
the radio until it was time to get underway to catch the tide into the marina.
We crossed into the creek about 10:30 and were tied up before 11:00. After two long months and tens of thousands of
dollars, we were finally home again.
Our new slip is wonderful. We are able to be alongside the pier, rather than tied in at the stern, so we can actually work on
the boat from the pier. We have DEEP water. At low tide, we still have more than 9 feet showing on the depth finder, which
means we have at least five feet before we touch bottom (in our old slip, we spend a lot of time buried a foot or more in the
mud). We have access to four electrical sockets, two of them boat connections and two of them regular ones. The only
problem is that we seem to be more of a bug haven than we were in the middle of the marina, but we are looking into a bug
zapper or something similar to combat this problem.
I declared a one-week moratorium on boat projects. The last week of May, the only boat jobs are the ones that are
necessary for daily living (installing the deck mounted air conditioners, for example) or emergencies (none). I contacted the
engine mechanic about a few minor questions and the electronics manufacturer. The electronics guy, who is in New
Zealand, is the most responsive – giving me detailed information on what the connection problems are and how to fix them,
even providing information that I can’t get from the other “big guy” electronics manufacturers – not even on-line.
We are in for the long haul now and significantly closer to the day when we can get away permanently. The next big project
– re-rigging the boat. I can’t say where we will be doing that, but I can definitely say where we will not. When the bill arrives
and it is three and a half times larger than the estimate, you really tend to lose faith in the company.
Until next month, fair winds…