Night sailing

I often love night sailing, especially when conditions are good: open ocean, minimal traffic to worry about, clear dark skies, nice wind, phosphorescent water, comfortably warm.... but there are other times, too.

In July, about 18 months ago, I wanted to head from Bucks Harbor to Bar Harbor, ME to meet Cynthia's flight. Weather forecast was for hurricane remnants dying off by dark, then decent but dying winds all night.... and then unfavorable winds until after Cynthia arrived. So.... I headed out at sunset and set sail down Eggemoggin Reach. As the light diminished, the wind increased.. and increased... and increased, well above forecasts, as the eye of the storm passed and the wind returned. Fortunately, I had dropped sails just after dark when I wondered about increasing winds and we raced along under half of the jib. 

By the end of the Reach the wind had died down and I raised all sail... and found that NONE of the buoys in Maine seem to be lighted! No worries: I have good charts, GPS, and AIS... and it means that very very few random high-speed idiots are out at night.

The moonless skies had cleared to reveal sparkling diamonds of stars for the first time that foggy summer as I sailed along using my GPS to tell me where the invisible buoys, islands, rocks, and ledges lay. At one point I sailed over a bar (at least ten feet deep) and the sudden change in wave, current, and accelleration would have revealed the subsurface ledge even if my chart had not... and a bell buoy and gong buoy told me I WAS where the map claimed and that I was moving rapidly past them. We depend so much on vision that it is delightful to use other senses to investigate my surroundings in the pitch darkness!

Another night found Cynthia and me sailing into Beaufort Inlet in the dark, keeping a sharp eye out for obstacles. A storm was approaching and time was short, so it made sense to enter this wide and easy harbor and drop anchor.... and any boats or other obstacles legally had to be lighted... but we turned sharply when a dark thing loomed suddenly ahead. Some huge item of dredging equipment was anchored and the red lights on board had burned down to being barely visible at 100' rather than the mile or so required. Anyway, "all's well that ends well".... 

Sailing north in the spring I ran into a line of storms at night and tried to figure out where the lightning cells were going so that I might be able to adjust course to avoid them. I find that worrying about storms is often worse than being in them. Anticipation of sudden gale-force gusts and lightning leaves me terribly anxious: I actually did far better once I had decided how the thunderheads were moving and set a course, and even better once the winds struck and I could sail along through building waves and whitecaps, hands on the wheel to fight the forces trying to head me up into the wind, trying to hold a bearing through the trackless dark. 

Another night on our first sail in the Bahamas, Cynthia and I were struck by a squall and found ourselves unable to figure out how to sail in the shifting wind, unable to keep a straight bearing. I can't recall if we jibed or tacked or what, I don't know if we sailed in circles or the wind shifted, but I recall noise and shouting and swearing. Something very similar happened when I was helping transport a boat from FL to the Virgin Islands: the crew on deck had trouble with steering a straight line, although there wasn't a storm. Now that I'm far more experienced, I would just heave-to and let the boat sit like a duck in the chaotic wind: much much easier and safer.

Long ago, a friend helped me sail from NC to MA and we tried to run downwind at night in very windy conditions. My friend wanted to make as much progress as we could, so I fought the wheel and tried to keep things safe and stable, nearly damaging the boat in the process. Finally I told myself to quit being stupid and heaved-to, reducing speed from 7.5 knots to 5knots and reducing our situation from dire to unpleasant-but-fine. FAR more relaxing than attempting to sail, even if the occasional "BANG!" of a crashing wave striking the exposed bottom startled me. I've heard about folks actually losing spars or sails trying to sail through this sort of weather rather than being wise and patient...

Avoid all this? Well, maybe.... but I think that the high points in our lives are often defined by the low ones, that happiness is defined in comparison to it's opposite. The lows are very fair payment.

BTW, the photo is a long exposure taken with my cell phone in Sonoma in early November rather than on the boat, but gives a darned good idea of dark sky views from the boat. 

I'm delighted to discover the excellent night photos my cell phone takes: I can even see the color of different stars and the nebula on Orion's sword!