April 9-11 Diane and John came down to Brunswick late Friday night and the delivery crew of Neil Wilson, John Wickens, and Greg Shaw arrived Saturday noon. The crew pitched in getting the boat ready for the first offshore sail with John W. and Greg finding things to do that we hadn't thought of. Diane was along to help with preparations, including a provisioning trip to the grocery store,but was not coming along for the trip. She had to get back home to keep an eye on our house renovation.
It was great to see how well everyone worked together and even with the expanded list of things to do, we were ready to leave at 11:30 am Sunday, We had a weather window of leaving by around noon to get to Beaufort, NC by sunset Tuesday. Things were supposed to get bad offshore by Tuesday evening.
 |
| Crew of Owl Moon preparing to leave the dock. |
Half way to the fuel dock, water stopped coming from the engine exhaust. We were able to dock on a T head a short distance away. Checking the water strainer, we determined that the water intake on the sail drive was not letting water in. We tried blowing air through the intake without any luck. Eventually we got down to removing the elbow fitting at the intake after first trying to push a wire and plastic cable tie through it. By now we were feeling pretty skeptical about fixing the problem without having the boat hauled. Greg kept focused on trying every possibility and removed the elbow from the intake. He found a dark brown object plugging it. Curious about the 'plug', Neil cleaned it off and saw that it was a fish head! Okay, who put that fish in our saildrive?
 |
| Fish head that delayed our departure. |
Crisis averted, diesel tanks topped off, and holding tanks pumped, we were finally underway at 1:30 pm...leaving a bit later than we wanted to.
 |
| Passing under the Brunswick River bridge on our way to the ocean. |
Heading out to St. Simons sound the wind was blowing strong out of the NE. It was supposed to shift more E by then. Ready to make our turn north, we raised the main to the 2nd reef and pulled out just a little bit of the inner jib. The wind direction forced us motor sail to a heading of 95 degrees...we wanted to go 50. Waves were 5'-6' and steep (6 second period) and the apparent wind was upper 20s to 30 knots...not what we expected for the start of our trip north. Greg and Neil rested to take the first watch at 7 pm. After a few hours of sailing E, we tacked over to head N, not quite the direction we were supposed to be heading...still no wind shift to the E.
Nobody felt like eating dinner. It was a good thing, too, since I had not been briefed by Diane on the plans for dinner and where provisions were stowed. We had been a bit rushed to get off the dock and figured we would be able to communicate later and also find things on our own. With the rough seas, that didn't work out so well.
Just after 7 pm as we were preparing for Greg and Neil to take the first watch, John W. called up from below that there was no fresh water. A brief investigation didn't turn up the cause (couldn't do much under the tough conditions...all aboard were not feeling so good). Both water tanks had been topped off before leaving the dock. Unfortunately, I had not checked to be sure that only one of the tanks was on, so both tanks emptied. Also, we had not taken any extra emergency bottled water aboard.
Our options seemed to be heading to Savannah...entrance was about 40 miles away, but then a ways up the river, or to Charleston, arriving about noon Monday. We had beverages aboard so decided that Charleston seemed a better choice.
The wind finally shifted east during the first watch, and by the time of the second watch (John and John at 11 pm), we cut the motor and were making about 7 knots reaching with the double reefed main and full inner jib. The waves were still built up and now a little out of sync with the wind.
After sunrise, we furled the inner jib, deployed the reacher, and put up the full main. Wind had backed off a bit and the waves had settled. The crew were all feeling much better and wishing we didn't have to stop at Charleston. With the weather coming in Tuesday evening, we were not going to be able to refill water and head back out. Charleston would be the end of this leg of the delivery of Owl Moon to Annapolis.
 |
| Beautiful morning sail after some tough going. |
 |
| These guys weren't smiling last night. |
 |
| Enjoying the pleasant morning. |
 |
| More smiles. |
Arriving outside the Charleston breakwater, we rolled in the jib, started the motor, and turned up wind to drop the main. John W. at the helm, had no power in forward gear to keep the boat headed into the wind...turns out no forward or reverse. We managed to get the main flaked and secured and could not determine the reason for not having thrust from the engine. The transmission seemed to be shifting fine. Good thing for unlimited towing with Boat US. We hung out reaching back and forth out of the channel just beyond the breakwater on the small jib only until the tow boat arrived about 1:30 to tow us to the Charleston City Boatyard...turned out to be about a 2 1/2 hour tow up Wando Creek.
 |
| Starting off under tow |
 |
| Approaching the Cooper River Bridge. |
 |
| Tow boat along side preparing to take us into our slip. |
After the current slacked off at the dock, Neil donned John's shorty wet suit and dove to check on the prop. He immediately saw that the prop was missing.
