First Long Range Cruise - 212 NMs Charleston, SC to Beaufort, NC

Reader Notes:  Rainy days are great for catching up, which I have. HURRAH!!!

1. This is the third article published today.  Be sure to read the other two; "A Friend Passes - Ronald D. Markovits" and "Good Friend & A Little Nostalgia - Hilton Head to Charleston, SC"
2. This article is a little long and a bit technical.  Hope you enjoy it.

We arrived in Charleston Saturday after a 10 hour 84 mile offshore run from Hilton Head and were looking forward to a few days in this exciting city with our friends Darrel and Sue who planned to arrive on Monday.  We’ve visited Charleston a number of times, once by car circa 2006, on the Great Loop  in April 2010 and most recently while attending the 2013 Outer Reef Rendezvous (June in Mount Pleasant).

However, we were not entirely looking forward to the journey from Charleston to Norfolk, which we planned to do on the ICW.  So we went back and reread our blog and we were reminded of the ICW challenges of tricky navigation, skinny water, currents and no wake zones.  Hmm.  We wondered if there was a reasonable offshore alternative.

Note: Charleston is a great place but at this time of the year it is full of bugs called no see-ums.

Explanatory Note:  Cruising like life is full of trade-offs.  Traverse the ICW and you cruise on calm waters with constantly changing scenery.  But you trade that for tricky navigation, skinny water, currents, no wake zones and the need to pay constant attention to tides (especially now that we draw another foot of water - 5 feet on the 63 versus 4 on the 48).  Operate on the ocean and you get direct routes with deep water.  But there are trade offs.  You have to negotiate inlets, some of which are very tricky (read as dangerous), add miles getting in and out of the inlets, add distance as the inlets are relatively few and far between and finally, and most critical, you have to deal with weather, wind and waves. 

Readers will recall that we departed St Simon Island for Hilton Head on calm waters and then after a two day stay departed Hilton Head for Charleston on the same weather window.  We checked the weather on Saturday night to see if our weather window was still “open.”  It was. 

According to Weather Underground, seas on Sunday were forecasted as 2 to 3 feet building to 3 to 4 feet on Monday on mild southeasterly winds (5 kts building to 15 kts ) and then increasing steadily to 5 to 7 feet as  winds picked up  15 to 25 as a cold front approached from the west.   My take, there was 36 to 48 hours remaining on the current weather window.

Explanatory Note: Heading north east along the shore with a southeast wind is a favorable condition for the 63.  Waves were forecasted to be on our beam which is optimum for the hydraulic stabilizers.  I’ve had Guided Discovery out on a 6 foot beam sea and she rode just fine.  Stabilizers are effective with seas from about 30 degrees to 150 degrees on the beam.  Following seas are OK too.  The most difficult point of “sail” is a head sea where the boat wants to pitch.  Stabilizers control roll.  They are and less effective with pitch and yaw.

The next question was where to go.  Below are the cities we visited on Great Loop between Charleston and Beaufort, NC with the miles for each leg.  The trip is 235 nautical miles with four stops.  I calculated the offshore run from Charleston to Beaufort and determined 212 miles including the inlets at both ends.  The difference is 23 miles which at 8 knots represents three hours and 18 gallons of fuel.

Charleston	Georgetown,SC	56.8
Georgetown,SC	Myrtle Beach,SC	44.4
Myrtle Beach,SC	Southport,NC	38.2
Southport,NC	Wrightsville Beach	22.5
Wrightsville Beach	Beaufort, NC	72.2

Summary: We had a solid 24 hour weather window with an acceptable 24 hour cushion.  We could save both travel days, some long some short, and distance (fuel).  We could get within 180 nautical miles of Norfolk where we will meet Dick Singer and Phil Fuoco for the 500 mile offshore run to the Cape Cod Canal.   We could be in a charming city (Beaufort) with a downtown dock and we could get out of Charleston’s no see-ums (bugs that have been driving Diana crazy and a long walk to town from the marina). If we left at 10:00 AM we would get into Beaufort around 11:00 AM (assuming 8.4 knots at 1400 RPM). Tradeoff: 25 hours on the water with an overnight.  Concern: Kodi has never eliminated on the boat.

Night crossings have historically not been our thing.  In fact Diana and I have only made one, a five hour run from Chicago IL to Southhaven MI on the 44 Sundancer (at 20 knots) in circa 2002.  I made one without Diana from Mystic to Branford CT on October 10, 2011 to move the boat closer to Yale New Haven Hospital after Diana’s knee injury (that ended our cruising for 8 months).  That run involved a tricky night approach to an unfamiliar harbor.

Decision: Go!  We could make the 25 hour run and arrive at Beaufort in daylight.

We moved the boat from our slip to the gas dock, which proved to be tricky maneuver as we were against a wall with very little space to turn.  Thanks to powerful thrusters I was able to extricate us but it was definitely another learning experience. 

Diana gave Kodi a walk while I fueled the boat.  We took on 460 gallons at $4.05 per gallons, the lowest we paid to date.  While on the walk Diana picked up some stones where Kodi had urinated in the hopes that it would encourage her do so underway.

We departed at 10:28 AM and headed down the channel past Fort Sumpter on an outbound tide.  Good news: The 2.5 knot outbound current raised our speed to 11.0 knots  Bad news: The outbound current combined with the 10 knot easterly wind produced 4 to 5 foot standing waves in the channel.  Guided Discovery pitched a bit, which scared the Furry Kid.  We passed the 900 foot Maersk Pittsburgh a large container ship in the channel.  She threw a big wake (6 to 7 feet) but the stabilizers handled it.

We pass the 900 foot Maersk Pittsburgh 

At 11:18 AM we turned north and quickly were into the promised two foot seas, which were spaced 7 to 9 seconds apart.  From there to the outer channel marker at the Beaufort Inlet, which we made at 10:25 AM on Monday, we headed northeast along the coast making only three minor course changes.

Our work area for the trip north

Early afternoon.  The left screen shows we're way south of Bald Head Island.  The right screen is radar

Nautical twilight.  The left screen shows us at Bald Head Island.  The right screen is monitoring weather

Running in the dark.  Radar and AIS are our eyes

Just before sunrise.  The left screen shows us 38.8 NM south of the Beaufort Inlet marker

Red in the morning, sailor take warning - This ultimately proves to be true

Sunrise (those are hard to see 4 to 5 foot swells)

What's it like to run for 212 miles over 25 hours.  The answer is easy when you do it in a 63 foot trawler equipped with good electronics, oversized stabilizers and relatively calm waters.  While you are aware of the seas, the boats roll is negligible even when we encountered 5 foot swells on Monday morning.  We operated from the pilothouse for 95% of the trip; both because of the temperature and the better working environment.  The pilothouse is laid out so that everything I need is close at hand.

During the evening Diana took the helm to let me catch some sleep.  I probably slept for 3 and a half hours and was very comfortable sleeping on the pilothouse settee.  

I kept a log recording data so that I might be helpful.  The data included:

• Time
• Position
• Course
• Speed
• Wave height
• Distance to next waypoint
• Distance traveled
• Wind direction and speed
• Barometer reading and direction (rising, steady, falling)
• Average speed

Particularly important on this run was wind direction, wind speed, barometer and wave heights.  Remember, we made this journey on the basis that we had a 24 hour weather window with a 24 hour cushion.  Would the weather forecast prove to be correct and did we make a good decision?  Winds started out NE at 5 knots and gradually backed around to ENE, E, ESE and SE while we were heading northeast on the open water.  The wind speed increased over time reaching a high of SE at 14 knots just after midnight.  Then they started decreasing in velocity.  This was a good sign.  The barometer started out at 30.20 inches and began falling at 2:45 PM.  It gradually fell to 30.12 inches suggesting the approach of the predicted low and a cold front.  Waves heights started out at 2 to 3 feet and rose gradually to 3 to 4 feet (with an occasional 5 footer). All of this data suggested that the forecast was behaving as predicted and that we had made a good "go" decision.

Explanatory Note: I've always been interested in weather since my days as a private pilot (1972 to 1983 - 1,300 hours including 300 plus of actual instrument time).  As a cruiser since 1999, I've continued to pay close attention to weather.  However, weather is somewhat transactional  for the type of cruising we have done up until today.  By transactional I mean you look at the current conditions and forecast and decide if you have enough good weather for the distance to be covered.  Rarely did we run more than ten hours. Cruising overnight (and for longer as we plan to do from Norfolk to the Cape Cod Canal) one needs to be more strategic as weather and forecasts can change.  Do I have enough good weather for the trip and a bit more for a margin of error?  The longer the trip the greater the margin.  Keeping track of weather trends while underway serves two purposes.  One, to make tactical decisions to deal with changes and two, to improve one's judgment over time on the go/no go decision.

I also made engine room visits every three or four hours (wearing earmuffs made by Remington) to check for leaks and shoot temperature readings with a hand held pyrometer.

Explanatory Note: Handheld Infrared Thermometers are used to safely measure surface temperatures without making physical contact. Infrared thermometers measure the temperature from a distance by detecting the amount of thermal electromagnetic radiation emitted by an object.

Running at night.  Radar and AIS serves as our eyes during the hours of darkness.  Radar allows us to see other boats, land and navigation aids in relation to our course.  AIS allows us to see other vessels that have the AIS (transponder) capability.  This is particularly useful when encountering ships, which ALWAYS have AIS.  AIS targets show up on the chartplotter as directional arrows.  Green: No threat.  Red: Watch out.

Explanatory Note: Heretofore I have only used radar in low visibility conditions.  Rarely did I have it running when cruising along the Chicago lakefront and often wondered why people turned it on.  On weekends there are so many targets that you would be hard pressed to use it intelligently.  I just think people were showing off.  Better to look out the window.  As a result, my radar knowledge was very basic. Necessity is the mother of invention.  Since getting the 63 I have been motivated to better understand radar and Garmin has made it easy by producing a very intuitive interface. I now can track targets, adjust the return for conditions and set up alarms.

Lowe left: Radar showing navigational aids for an inlet
Upper right: A target being tracked

AIS data shows vessel name, size, heading, speed and proximity

We arrived in Beaufort at 11:50 AM and tied up a Beaufort Dock, a marina that sits of their main downtown business street.

View of downtown Beaufort as we arrive

Guided Discovery at Beaufort docks

One concern: Kodi did not eliminate during the entire 25 hours despite our efforts and encouragement.  Kodi as you know is highly trained.  She is so incredibly housebroken.  We need to work on this.

One negative.  www.activecaptain.com, a wonderful website for cruisers that provides data on marinas, anchorages, hazards and local knowledge, that is constantly updated by cruisers like us, showed the marina's transient rate as $2.50 per foot ($158 per night).  A bit expensive but OK it's close to town.  When I got there the dockmaster told me the rate was $2.95 per foot ($186 per night).  I mentioned that active captain showed a lower rate and further pointed out that they were less than 20% filled.  I then got a song and dace that I could get a lower rate if I took a slip ($2.75).  I did not have a good feeling about this and plan to write a negative review for active captain.  This marina does not justify $3.00 a foot.  The bathrooms are old and tired and not very clean (not that we need them but many smaller cruisers do).

Statistics:

• Nautical miles Charleston to Beaufort: 212.5
• Average speed: 8.4 knots
• Fuel consumption: 174.7 gallons
• Fuel efficiency: 1.22 NMPG
• Distance traveled since Fort Lauderdale: 747.3 NM (859 SM)

And one post script - the weather.  We called it right.  When we awoke Tuesday morning it was raining and windy (15 to 20 knots).  The temperature decreased to 60 degrees by late evening.  At 11:30 PM Tuesday we had the promised frontal passage.  It was accompanied by a wind shift to the north, an immediate 5 degree temperature drop in the first 20 minutes, a fifteen degree drop after 90 minutes and a drop in pressure to 29.89 inches.  The boat took a roll at the dock that was hard enough to cause the door on the Portuguese bridge to slam shut.  (Note: New procedure.  The door will be kept shut as weather approaches or when we are underway).  Seas are now 7 feet or better on the route we traveled yesterday.

Written by Les.