US East Coast - Refit Work, New Friends, Old Friends and Finally Back to Annapolis

The last couple of months have gone by in a blur. After departing Brunswick, which we found to be a very nice stop with nearby inexpensive food and beverage and still in operation Speak Easy, we made our way to Charleston. The sailing up the US East Coast this year was more challenging than normal with stronger and less favorable winds, so we battled less than comfortable sea states and quite a bit of head winds. We would normally expect fairly benign southerly winds pushing us up the coast - well just one more weather phenomenon that was out of sorts this year. 

Charleston, though we had visited via land, was our first time via water - was all about our electronics overhaul, ultimately keeping us there almost a month. The upside though - an autopilot that works and integrates with the rest of our electronics. One working chart plotter now at the front part of the cockpit in easy viewing of the watch and helm. 500 lbs of old gear stripped from the boat, including old wiring runs, much of which we sold second hand. Our marina was downtown so walking distance to everything, which made afternoon breaks for work a blast. 


Next up was Wrightsville Beach, NC another new spot for us. Similar sailing conditions but a good test for all of our new gear. Two issues presented, first the hydraulic auto pilot ram (we have a second electric drive as well) failed to engage every time and the second issue was that our electric winches cut out. The electric winches we sorted while still at sea, tracing the issue to a poorly executed ground connection. I reworked this and while I think it still needs a more complete overhaul it is much better now and seems to be working well. Wrightsville Beach was a very active outdoors/water community with local sailing, surfing, fishing tournaments. 


Wrightsville Beach to Deltaville took us aroun
d Cape Hatteras again, with a similar strategy leaving on the back end of some gnarly weather had us rounding the cape in calm conditions under motor. Not sure there is a good way to do this passage, just trying to minimize our exposure. We delved into our next round of refit work in Deltaville with the primary target being a complete redo of of cockpit cushions and window shades - all done by Rae. We also complete stripping the older stain and Cetol from the decks and all sealed with Semco. Tenacious is really starting to look very good. Rae also repurposed our old mainsail into two bean bag chairs for the deck, super comfortable. Lastly, I was finally able to trace the hydraulic autopilot issue to the helm switch, which I replaced and have two functioning drives now. 



From Deltaville we stopped in Solomons Island for the 4th of July, then onto St Michaels and finally we are back in Annapolis. We will haul out here in about a week for annual hull maintenance and for us to travel back to WA state to see friends and family. For the season we sailed 3,282 nautical miles. 


New Friends; Mike in Charleston who helped immensely with the electronics overhaul, Matt and family in Wrightsville Beach who himself had spent part of his 20’s sailing an HR49 in the Med, Kim in Deltaville who introduced me to Pickleball by making fun of me - perfect motivator for my personality. Finally we joined the Ocean Cruising Club - requirement that you have made a continuous 1,000 mile ocean passage. Old friends; Jason and Laura on Tahina - this boat previously owned by Frank sailed the pacific in 2010 when we did on our previous boat. Jason and Laura were crew for Frank subsequently buying the boat and offering charters on it now. We crossed paths in Solomons but no time to catch up as they were off to Maine. Don and Cheryl - again Don an old friend from the pacific crossing - had a great day of sailing out of Annapolis with them. 


What’s next - we are asking ourselves - well a fair amount of uncertainty - Jake is in Lithuania trying out for a professional soccer club, the outcome of this impacting where he will be for the next several months. Isabelle will tour some colleges this summer and be applying in the fall. So while written in sand below the high tide line, I think we will make another loop of the US East Coast and Bahamas, keeping timing very flexible for us, and likely tackle a couple more larger refit projects on the boat. 







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