Shots Fired and We Are Off

Our crew came into town on Saturday.  Charlie Dixon, fellow Corinthian from Philadelphia, arrived around noon.  A friend of his picked him up at the train station and then took us on a provisioning run and stop at West Marine.  Peter Bittner, a friend from Annapllis, arrived after midnight due to a three hour delay for his train (he had missed the earlier train due to a bad accident on route 50).

Looking at the PredictWind weather routing and models and NWS forecasts, Charlie and I agreed to depart at 4:30 am and figured we would be in Block Island before sunset on Tuesday.  I had asked Chris Parker for a forecast, but had not yet received it.

Charlie left to stay at his friend’s house in Va Beach and Diane and I walked into Hampton for dinner.  With final preparations complete, we turned in, leaving a light on for Peter.

I woke up at 3 am and found a forecast from Chris Parker in my inbox that included the statement:
“Nasty IMPULSE of energy moves thru E US and may pass just S of NewEngland Tue18, and could bring brisk wind form various directions along with 40k T-strms. I think you may need to arrive BlockIsland before Tue18, then you'll arrive before the inclement weather.”

No way we could be in BI before Tue18!

Charlie arrived about 4 am and we began discussing our options given Chris’ forecast. Soon after he arrived, we heard several gunshots and then people arguing...someone was counting. Then there were more shots.  Someone was in the water. The activity was just two docks over from us. Diane called 911.  Someone else had already called, and police were soon on the scene.  You can read about it here:
https://www.dailypress.com/news/crime/dp-nws-hampton-shooting-yacht-club-20190617-story.html
(or other area news sources)

Needless to say, that activity was very unnerving...making it difficult to focus on our trip planning.

The course to Atlantic City, NJ was not far off the course to Block Island for the first 75 miles.  We decided that we could make our final decision later, but probably head for AC.  I was feeling a bit on edge after the unsettling forecast and shooting and decided I needed to go back to bed for a bit. If we were heading to AC, there wasn't as much need to get an early start.

Surprisingly,  I actually slept for a bit. When we we departed at 6 am, there were still police at the scene of the shooting.

The wind was brisk, as forecast...17 knots,  gusting to 20. We had a fast reach out to the tunnel of the Bay Bridge Tunnel to exit the Chesapeake Bay and up to  the SE end off Cape Charles. After that, we turned NE on a downwind course heading east of the rhumb line to AC (or BI).  Time to put out the whisker pole and go wing and wing. The 2 - 3 foot waves were on our quarter and Owl Moon handle conditions fine with all three sails.  We left Hampton and the shooting in our wake as we enjoyed a beautiful sail out into the ocean.  We had a great sail all day and into the night.

Chris's forecast also said Sunday evening "chance for a few squalls/T-strms to 40k, but most or all of them should pass N of you, wind-chop 7', STRATEGY: brisk downwind sailing."  I tried, unsuccessfully, to contact him for clarification on where those storms would be and how far south we should be to miss them. We were making such good time, I was concerned that we would be further north than he anticipated.  We actually took the pole down for a few hours in the afternoon to slow down.  Since the summary part of Chris' forecast for Sunday evening said "Squalls/T-strms exit the Coast Sun16 evening, mainly NJ/DE" and we were still opposite MD, I figured we would be south of those storms.

Following a tanker out to the tunnel.

.

Crossing over the tunnel.

.

By afternoon, the waves had built...we were enjoying the ride.

.

21 knots of wind with all three sails full.  We saw over 9 knots SOG, but only managed to capture 8.9 on camera before taking the whisker pole down before sunset...time to go on 2 person watch rotation and we didn't want the pole up in the dark and with only 2 on watch.