Day 54, Tuesday, October 27th
Belhaven to Washington, NC
Track on ViewRanger
Weather today started similar to yesterday, a nice stiff breeze from the NE that was just the perfect direction to go at speed. I first sailed south until I 'turned the corner' toward the west. The wind did never stop - I had an amazingly fast ride. The Caprice did better than ever before - the GPS showed a speed of 7 knots most of the time, and sometimes even a little higher. This is the fastest a boat of Caprice's length and weight can go. Even more wind and bigger sails couldn't drive her any faster, because this is something like the sound barrier for boats that are too heavy to 'lift' up on the surface, like powerful motorboats. Caprice and most other sailboats are much too heavy to lift themselves up, and are in effect sitting in their own bow wave.
One curious thing I learned on this journey is that there are many more ketch rigged boats (one large mast, one smaller mast in the stern) than I imagined. I think every 5th boat I saw cruising was a ketch. Many times their owners run them 'jig and jigger', meaning what you see below - they use the jib and the mizzen sail, but leave the main sail in the bag.
On the other hand, I've seen only 4 catamarans in total. I guess they are all in the islands?
A light rain started before I reached my destination - McCotter's Marina in Washington, NC. I'll investigate storage of the Caprice in this area and will probably fly back to Chicago by the end of the week.
Track on ViewRanger
Weather today started similar to yesterday, a nice stiff breeze from the NE that was just the perfect direction to go at speed. I first sailed south until I 'turned the corner' toward the west. The wind did never stop - I had an amazingly fast ride. The Caprice did better than ever before - the GPS showed a speed of 7 knots most of the time, and sometimes even a little higher. This is the fastest a boat of Caprice's length and weight can go. Even more wind and bigger sails couldn't drive her any faster, because this is something like the sound barrier for boats that are too heavy to 'lift' up on the surface, like powerful motorboats. Caprice and most other sailboats are much too heavy to lift themselves up, and are in effect sitting in their own bow wave.
One curious thing I learned on this journey is that there are many more ketch rigged boats (one large mast, one smaller mast in the stern) than I imagined. I think every 5th boat I saw cruising was a ketch. Many times their owners run them 'jig and jigger', meaning what you see below - they use the jib and the mizzen sail, but leave the main sail in the bag.
On the other hand, I've seen only 4 catamarans in total. I guess they are all in the islands?
A light rain started before I reached my destination - McCotter's Marina in Washington, NC. I'll investigate storage of the Caprice in this area and will probably fly back to Chicago by the end of the week.
We are tracking your progress. You are really learning a lot on the cruise. Hope our paths cross this summer
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