Day 2 and 3 - Annapolis to Hampton, VA

Wow.  We had an amazingly good first leg.  Some boats had equipment issues or were particularly hard hit by rain/storms but we had a really nice trip down the bay.  The rally started off with a race start which was fun and put both Steves into race mode.  Here is Steve at the wheel in his typical side steering position. 

 

Here was my race position.  I am a talented enough skipper that I can lead all aspects of boat race operations and eat breakfast at the same time.  Actually with Fast Steve on sail trim and tactics and The Steve on helm, there really isn't much I am allowed to do.  (I know we are working on new Steve names but I have been busy) Serenity really sailed nicely.

 

  

We were one of the first boats across the start line and held our position fairly well in diminishing winds up to Thomas Point.  Here is some of the fleet behind us.

Here are a few of the faster boats getting by us.  They wound up in a light air pocket and we gained some on them but once the wind picked up, they took off.

Past Thomas Point, the wind was fairly light and from the wrong direction so we fired up the engine but after just an hour or so, the wind picked up nicely.  We turned off the engine, put up full sails, and it stayed that way all the way to Hampton.

Here is Sean sailing with his foot / steering line technique which worked well.

Here is Fast Steve sporting our new for 2013 crotch strap augmented life jacket per Rally recommendation.  It is the finest in crotch related accessories available from West Marine for $12.  Also, Fast Steve studying up on a few knots in Chapman Piloting and Seamanship.  Or is he sleeping? You can't tell.  That is the genius of Fast Steve.

The skipper skippering.

Dinner was an awesome chicken lasagna made by Pat while Steve did a pre-trip lawn cutting.  Notice that the plates are staying on the table in 15-20 degrees of heel because Linda was clever enough to stock the kitchen with cool high grip place mats / hot pads.  Also notice that we had the Serenity computer drive the boat while we ate and the "steer to angle of wind" mod worked fantastically.

Here is a non-rally boat that we think was trying to cut in front of a cargo ship and after seven extremely loud horn blasts thought better of it and turned just in time.

The price of sailing the whole way into head winds was an additional 20 miles or so on a 120 nautical mile trip.  The benefit was hours of 6.5 to 7+ knot sailing in some very nice conditions.
  

There were some storms over night and in the southern part of the bay, the waves got larger and were choppy so the sleeping for the off shift crew was tough.  The battle for sleep master is a close call as Fast Steve was able to sleep solidly on his off shifts while Sean took advantage of the "formal shifts only at night" policy to book a 5+ hour block of sleep starting at 8:00 am after his last shift.  Sean and I did get hit by one thunderstorm leading to some wet sailing.  We reefed down a bit but the wind did not really get strong and after an hour or two, we were back to full sail.

In the morning, the wind was straight out of the Hampton tunnel area so we needed to either motor or tack a lot.  The crew decide we were here to sail and that is what we did.  Turned out to be some nice sailing with lots of warships and commercial traffic coming and going to watch.  Got in to Hampton around 12:30, hit the fuel dock, pump out, marina, party, dinner, and crashed.