Ken's report (Oriental to Charleston)

Ken called in last night to report on the first leg of their trip.  The following is Gay's account of that phone call.  Please excuse translation errors caused by the Boat Talker-Non-Boat Talker interface (if you do not under this, please refer to the October 29 post (http://sailingpatina.blogspot.com/2009/10/boat-talkers-vs-non-boat-talkers.html)).

They went approximately 250 nautical miles on this leg of the trip, alternating mostly between motor sailing and sailing.  They had to slow down coming into the Charleston area as they did not want to come into the harbor under sail in complete darkness.  Overall, they averaged about 5.6 to 5.7 knots.  They used about 24 gallons of diesel for the trip.  Ken reported that it was a really great trip (not without its snags).  All onboard were tired.  Thunderstorms started just as they tied up in Charleston.  They spent Monday night in port (and because of fog, will probably not leave until later in the day).

First night out  the seas were pretty rough (6-8 foot seas). Lots of crashing through the waves. The boat did very well. It was brutally cold, but the enclosure helped.  The second night out they had following seas.


Naturally, something didn't work.  In this case, the radar went out.  They were able to rig a workaround so that it worked intermittently, but it certainly increased the challenge of sailing in the dark.  They had one close call with a very small fishing boat that appeared out of nowhere (before they rigged up the intermittent radar).  It followed none of the rules of the road--it did not have appropriate lights on, it did not comply with navigation rules.  It forced a quickly planned jibe to just get away from the vessel. 

As they started into the Charleston Harbor under sail they were hailed by port pilot telling them that a half mile long tanker coming out and they would need to yield even though they were under sail.

Once in port, Ken worked with Raymarine and others to try to find/fix radar issues.  He found a new chip that he will install and program Tuesday morning to see if that fixes the problem.  Before leaving Oriental, he had made some additional changes to the battery system to deal with a radar issue that had presented on and off  (radar would shut down under certain circumstances related to starting the engine).  So, the issues with the radar are not completely new but he had always been able to get the system to come back up in the past.