Friday 3 Dec, Kitty Hawk NC to Cape Lookout anchorage, cruising day 6: Rounded Cape Hatteras at 09:04, then safe arrival to Cap Lookout anchorage, next to Beaufort NC. Another state south.
The day starts with Oana pretty seasick and trying to get some sleep in her berth while Cloudy Bay and I battle the Atlantic dragon. The wind was forecast to be dropping in the early hours and clocking right at the same time. But no, it actually continued building till 3am (now 25-30kts) but the swing is happening, and we are now on a beam reach with apparent wind 60 degree to the bow.
At this wind speed and angle Cloudy Bay has seriously lifted her skirt up and is galloping to the Hatteras at full speed (9kts), even under heavily reefed mainsail and cutter. The wind now on the beam also has the effect of making it feel less windy, with the apparent wind speed (wind across deck) now the same as true wind speed. Plus the waves are no longer confronting us, they are now on our side. So while we do get the occasional wave slap the hull and bounce onto deck, we are no longer subject to the rhythmic plowing into each and every wave.
This makes the ride infinitely more comfortable, and I manage to get the odd 15 minute cat-nap in between alarms (I set an alarm for 20 mins and it takes me 5 mins to nod-off to sleep). Just before I set an alarm I take a very good look at the plotter’s chart, AIS and radar images, and outside for navigational lights, to make certain there are no boats to run into for the next 20 minutes. I learned to power-nap like this when working on oil drilling operations. Operations often lasted several days with no sleep (up to 6 days) and I could physically do this with the odd power nap every 12-18 hours.
Talking of other boats. At one point I found a fishing boat heading directly for us. I called him on VHF. “We seem to be on a collision course. I will turn to port and we pass green-to-green, OK?”. “Sure-thing cap, we pass port-to-port” comes back the drugged sounding voice. I think for a second. No, green-to-green is starboard-to-staboard, not port-to-port! “Fishing vessel, just to clarify: I will TURN to PORT and we pass starboard-to-starboard, OK?”. All I get back is another drugged voice “…sure thing cap, stbd-to-stbd”. And at that, I turn off the autohelm and steer well clear of him! He passes ¼ mile on my starboard side, fishing arms out, nets towing, birds flocking in his wake, and the decks lit up like a football arena. Great night vision they must have. Not!
Day breaks at 6:30am with a wonderful red glow on the eastern horizon. The usual morning chill in the air is absent and the water temperature is 20 degC, up from just 10 degC in the Chesapeake. We are getting close to the Gulf Stream… and warmth! But the wind is not dropping, and it has not clocked to the right as much as it should have.
I immediately start to worry about the Cape Hatteras rounding. Maybe 9am is no longer the right time, should I hold this speed or slow down? The sea-state for certain will be chaotic. Rounding the shoals and going hard on the wind in rough seas won’t be fun. From sunrise until 9am seemed the longest 90 minutes ever. But spot-on the forecast, as we approach the wind is indeed shifting, even if it is not decreasing. And by the time we get to the rounding buoy, we are on a deep run, EXACTLY as we had planned. A deep run, but not a dead run. And no gybes needed. And I wonder: just how can these forecast models get it correct and so very accurately. It’s phenomenal. This 9am Friday 3-Dec wind shift has been accurate for the last 5 days of forecasting. Amazing wizardry if you ask me.
In the last few miles, the sea state becomes crazily chaotic. This is so characteristic of this area around the Hatteras shoals, where shallow meets deep meets headland meets Gulfstream. Cloudy Bay passes the turning buoy at 09:04, just 4 minutes behind schedule. But not bad timing after a wild night and 150 nautical miles! Well done navigator. Oh, that would be me 😊
We make the 55 degrees turn to the right and the wind comes nicely onto the beam again. Our speed picks back up to 8-9 knots and we take off toward the next Cape, Cape Lookout. I aim slightly landward to start with. I don’t want to get into the full flow of the gulf stream which lies just a few miles further offshore. Even where we are, there is an initial 1.5kts current against us. The water temperatures is now 22 degC, so we are definitely close to the main Gulf Stream flow (which has a ~26degc temperature).
Oana comes out the cabin and crawls into the cockpit mid-morning. She hasn’t managed to sleep much, but she looks much better than last evening, and she insists I get some proper sleep. So I set the course and head down, asking her to wake me when the wind goes beyond 120deg from the bow, or drops enough for the mainsail to start backing as the boat rolls.
Both of these happen 2 hours later, and we turn on the engine and start to motor-sail. Motoring brings the apparent wind forward, allowing the sails to power up again, which in turn helps the engine and also stops us rolling so much. But then with further wind reduction and right-swing we get to the point where the sails are no longer working at all, and it is time to furl them away completely. Normally, in these conditions I would motor-sail with the mainsail pinned hard in. While this helps to reduce the rolling motion, it also puts a lot of strain on the mainsail, which flops around and takes pressure randomly from both sides. Not to mention severe yanking on the mainsheet and traveller system. But we don’t what to punish our new sails like this. So reluctantly we put up with the rolling downwind without sails.
The rest of the day is uneventful. We make water while motoring, filling up the tanks. And of course, the batteries get fully recharged too. Oana also gets recharged. As the seas settle back down, she gets back to her usual chirpy self and that makes me feel better too.
At 6:30pm we round Cape Lookout and by 8:30pm we enter the anchorage behind the Cape. Probably the best sheltered anchorage on the whole US east coast. We were last in here to lick our wounds after a bad accidental gybe on the way north in May 2020.
We anchor in 6m, just behind the sand dunes, in very calm water. After a quick tidy-up on the very salty deck and the anchor alarm set, we go down below for a bowl of steaming seafood chowder then off to bed. Bed, blissful bed, which for the first time in 36 hours is still again and back to horizontal!
It was a relief to get this leg done. Rounding the Hatteras southbound is always a tricky one. Especially this late in the year. We will have more challenges no doubt, but this was certainly a big one ticked off the stress list for us. And looking back, oh what a sail that was. Cloudy Bay is certainly back, strutting her stuff again 😊
