7 November Passage from Chesapeake to Charleston, SC

“Sailing around the notorious Cape Hatteras? Beware storms and huge seas! It's a monster.”

That's the general impression we'd received about making the trip south departing from the Chesapeake and sailing around Cape Hatteras. Even our boat insurance stipulates no coverage for any named storm damage if you are south of 35°N between 1 June and 1 November.

Any passage where there is a strong current passing close to a shallow cape with sharp drop off has the potential for throwing up challenging conditions when you have a wind against current situation. The Gulf Stream flows north not far off the Cape which is only 100 miles south east of Norfolk. We left with a forecast of 20 knots north falling to 15 knots NE at the Cape and found much less wind, bit we did find the south counter current riding the 20m contour line. I think we had to motor as much as we were able to sail all the way to Cape Look Out which was 70nms further. The plan was to anchor in the protected lagoon behind Cape Look Out while a small low bringing southerly winds came off the coast and then continue the last 200nm to Charleston with northerlies following the front.

The problem with November is the weather is colder and the sun goes down at 5pm. We arrived in the dark, navigated into the lagoon with the electronic chart, cached Google Earth imagery and the red flashing light. No matter how much information you have it's always a tense time especially with strong winds on the nose, shallows somewhere to our left and to our right and seven boats already in the anchorage. In the dark the distance to an anchor light is tough to judge but we did it, dropped the anchor with plenty of scope (because we could) and had dinner. Total time for the first leg was 35 hours for 200nm.

We awoke to calm conditions; perfect for unwrapping the head sail and doing a quick fix on the bolt rope of the head sail which had come unstitched at the base. Without the time and conditions to drop the sail and machine stitch David held the sail and I put in holding stitches as fast as I could. The sail had been wrapped for less than 10 minutes before the first gust of frontal wind struck. And then it rained for the rest of the day. David took off the starboard main winch and serviced it. It had developed a nasty groan on the way here.

At dawn the next day, rested, a new, favourable weather forecast in hand we lifted anchor and headed out to Charleston.

Where our trip to Cape Look Out was one of light winds, the sail to Charleston was a downwind blast. In a 25 knot tail wind we surfed down one wave at 17.6 knots. In fact we took only 27 hours to cover the distance. Hello Charleston.