When we were crossing the Potomac, we blew out a connector on one of the pulleys on the travler. Luckily we were able to rig something up using a block from the genaker. We got parts this morning and fixed it properly.
As we left Solomons, the sail jammed coming out of the roller furler. We anchored and I went up the mast to get it unjammed with help from Steve on the lines.
On the way out of Solomons there were lots of boats heading out for a day of sailing. Not sure where they all were yesterday when it was blowing 25. The Steve sailed a nice line getting as much north as he could and staying fast so we beat them out of the Patuxent.
We also saw three tug boats that were testing out major water cannons as we came out.
Later we figured out why as a huge liquid natural gas freighter came up right in front of us. The tugs met the freighter and pushed it into the big LNG facility on the western shore of the bay just bellow Calvert Cliffs. The tugs must need to test their water hoses in case there is a fire around all the natural gas.
It was a bad day for going northwest as the wind was fluky and directly out of the northwest. We sailed for a few hours in the morning and had one fast hour of sailing in gusty 18 knot winds as we came into Deale. The rest of the day was a motor sail. Main and motor with folding blade in the overdrive mode worked well. Here is an interesting French wooden boat we passed on the way up. We got a nice French wave from them.
All in all a really fantastic trip this year. Made the longest run we have ever done all the way to Norfolk. Hit lots of interesting places - Yorktown, Deltaville, Reedville, Solomons Island. Weather was generally very good. Giving us north winds to get down to Norfolk and then south winds to head back up the bay. The total traveled was 329 nautical miles at an average speed of 5.2 knots. During the 7 days of the trip, we spent 63 hours sailing and the maximum speed was 10.7 knots surfing down the waves.
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