May 26 through May 30, 2023
On Memorial Day weekend, the weather was forecast to cool off a bit from the 90-degree temperatures we’d already been experiencing in Tampa. It looked to be a lovely low-80’s and low-humidity all weekend. Knowing this would be the last chance for pleasant anchoring weather before Fall, I decided to take Serendipity out single-handed for the first time. Other than some high winds & thunderstorms predicted for Friday afternoon and overnight, the rest of the weekend looked benign and perfect for cruising!
Friday, May 26
I decided to head for Emerson Point anchorage on the Manatee River downstream of Bradenton, which I was familiar with. Winds forecast to be out of the NE at 7-8 knots all morning until mid/late afternoon, at which they were forecast to build to 20-25 out of the NNW with a 60% chance of afternoon thunderstorms.
I departed DIYC at 10:06 after successfully egressing the slip single-handed. As forecast, the winds about 7 knots out of the north. I left the basin with two other DIYC boats who were late for the St. Pete to Naples race. As I watched them motor down the bay, I hoisted the mizzen and jib, then turned downwind. Winds were now already lighter than forecast, so Serendipity was only traveling at 3-4 knots. But, since I had all day, I opted to leave the main down and putted along down to Big Bend.
As I approached the channel turning point, I could see to the SW a large “tug & tow” heading north. I got on the AIS app on my iPad to see how fast it was going and to confirm it was heading to Tampa and would thus be an issue for me. But AIS showed two tug boats in that location, both heading north at 11 knots, which was confusing, as all I could see was one tug pushing a very large barge. As I continued south, I continued to monitor it visually using binoculars and on the app, and soon realized that at our current speeds, we would likely encounter each other at the confluence of the channels, at which point I’d have to give way and jibe. But, that would mean I’d have to jibe towards the shallows off MacDill AFB. So, I came up with a plan to actually head up a bit (to the east) to gain some speed so that I could be at a point past the shallows when I would have to jibe, which I did. I also set the main since the wind had died even more, and I was only going about 2.5 knots. The main brought me back up to about 3.5. The tug & tow was much closer now, heading north toward the east/west channel south of MacDill AFB.
Shortly after turning west, north of the east/west channel and just south of MacDill, both of the tugs that were showing up on AIS passed me heading for Tampa (neither with a tow). That confused me because I thought one of them would be the tug with the tow (barge). I got back on the AIS app, but nothing was showing where this big tug and barge were, now only a couple of miles from me. I grabbed my binoculars to take a look, and low and behold—-it was anchored! And had been the whole time! Wow. I felt sort of dumb. All those gyrations for nothing! I was glad I was single-handed! lol
After heading west far enough to jibe to the south, I did so, and ever-so-slowly crept past St. Petersburg in the middle of the bay. The winds were rapidly dying now, and eventually I was becalmed a few miles abeam downtown St. Pete. I kicked back, went below and made some lunch and started some music, taking advantage of the dead time before the afternoon winds kicked in.
After about an hour of no wind at all, a breeze started up from the SW (which wasn’t at all in the forecast). But, I trimmed the sails for close-hauled on a starboard tack and pointed toward the Sunshine Skyway far off in the distance. (Visibility was excellent.) I was back to about 3 knots.
Shortly afterwards I could see rain cells building over north Pinellas County and others north of Tampa. According to my radar app, their movement was slowly SE. That would mean the Pinellas ones would cross Tampa Bay north of me. No worries.
But, as time went on, more started building to the west of St. Petersburg and on the south end of Pinellas County. I figured these would likely be affecting me, so I started a close watch on them, including checking weather observations at the Albert Whitted and St. Pete/Clearwater airports (because they are updated every minute) to see what kind of winds they were bringing. Both airports showed 5 knots (and the latter was in the midst of one of these cells). But, I thought I’d play it safe, and so decided to gather my rain gear, close up the boat, and reef the Genoa a bit. (I had already taken down the main after the wind died since it wasn’t doing any good, and I knew I’d want it down in the strong afternoon winds, anyway.)
As I went below to start closing up the boat, after only finishing closing four portlights, all of the sudden the boat was hit by a big gust of wind and starting rounding up to the north. This was within like 30 seconds of me going below, before which there was nothing visible for at least 3 miles distance! I scrambled back to the cockpit to take back control from the autopilot (which wasn’t able to handle this sudden 20-knot wind suddenly coming from the north. The boat was healing to port quite a bit as I wrestled with it and decided I would try to pinch into the wind, and so started trimming in the Genoa. But, I needed to leave the wheel to do that, so engaged the autopilot on a close-hauled heading, then jumped to the winch and began trimming. However, the autopilot failed again miserably, and before I could stop it, the bow crossed the wind, the Genoa back-winded, and we went for a 360-degree ride. This happened TWICE before I gave up on the idea and just decided to try running with the wind. So, turned downwind, eased the Genoa, and everything calmed down quite a bit.
So, now we were heading for the Sunshine Skyway again, doing 6.5 to 7 knots with about 2’ seas and 20 knots of wind from a broad reach (150 degrees off the starboard bow). However, the boat had a unnerving tendency to round up very dramatically. I finally realized that the mizzen was causing this, and that I probably didn’t need it anyway. So, I decided to douse it, but to do this, I’d have to turn back into the wind again, and I’d have to do it very fast since the autopilot had already demonstrated that it could not hold the boat into the wind in such conditions.
The only fortunately thing this time was that I could do it from the cockpit, and I had recently installed a “downhaul” to the mizzen (a line attached to the top sail slug) to help yank down the sail in a hurry, since neither the main nor mizzen come down without a lot of help. So, I turned into the wind, engaged the autopilot, grabbed the downhaul and halyard in each hand, then hauled on the former while I let fly the latter. To my amazement (and relief), for the first time ever, the mizzen came down perfectly, flaking right into the bag in one fell swoop. The downhaul had worked great!
I managed to grab the helm and turn us back downwind before the Genoa was backwinded again, and this time the boat road nicer. And, we hadn’t lost any speed.
As the boat felt under control once again, and relatively comfortable, I assessed the situation. We were heading in the right direction, but there was definitely one, and possibly two cells that were bearing down on us. We were already at 20-22 knots of wind and those cells could be bringing 35 or more knots with them. I did not want to have the full 140% Genoa up when they hit us. So, I decided I would try to roller-reef the Genoa. Of course, this meant that once again I’d have to head at least toward the wind to take the strain off the sail, but as uncomfortable as that was going to be, it had to be done.
This time, after turning back up into the wind, the winds and the seas had increased enough to start splashing water over the bow and back to the cockpit. Luckily, just prior I had made a dash down below to get some water and my rain jacket. As the bow approach to within 30 degrees of the wind and started flogging, I released the Genoa sheet and began hauling on the furling line. But, I could not move it by hand (which sometimes happens—especially when trying to get it started). So, I quickly threw the line on a winch, grabbed a winch handle, and started cranking. I only got a few cranks out of it when even that did nothing. I looked forward and could see that the sail hadn’t started furling at all. Something was definitely wrong. And, in the meantime, the autopilot had brought us through the wind again, the Genoa backwinded, and we unintentionally tacked all the way around, until I stopped us by heading south toward the Sunshine Skyway again on a broad reach.
As the boat settled down again, I cautiously engaged the autopilot then went forward to look over the Genoa roller-furler. Upon examination, I could see that the line had somehow gotten jammed inside. I could not un-jam it without taking it apart. And there was no way that was going to happen in the current conditions.
As it began to dawn on me that I had a 140% Genoa all the way out that I could not douse or even reef and was heading for thunderstorms, I got very worried. The sail (and perhaps the boat) could easily get overpowered in such winds. This could cause loss of control, damage to the sail or rigging, or even complete loss of the entire rig. I had very little experience with this boat, and certainly not any in those kinds of possible winds.
Had the forecast not called for 20-25 knots from the NW most of the night, I might have tried something else. But knowing that these were the winds I was stuck with, I knew I had to come up with a plan.
As I sped south, it appeared that I would pass the Sunshine Skyway right when one of the storm cells was getting there. The other storm had passed by me to the north and was no longer a factor. But this other one was definitely a factor, and looked a bit intimidating. Not wanting to risk that encounter while in the limited-maneuverability area under the Sunshine Skyway, I decided to turn to a close-hauled heading on a port tack (basically heading ENE) to try to pinch—sort of forereach—to stop heading toward the Skyway to allow the storm to pass to the SE, but also not to get too far away. This I did successfully for the half-hour or so it took for the storm to pass. As it did, a large tanker came through the Skyway, heading for Tampa. So, I was glad I had waited! The way now clear of traffic and weather, I turned back south, trimmed for a broad reach, and headed for the bridge. At this point the winds had picked up to about 25 knots and the seas in the bay to about 3 feet. But since both were following, everything was still comfortable, although the autopilot couldn’t handle it, so I had to remain active on the helm, to counter steer the stern’s tendency to swing to port whenever one of the larger waves passed beneath us.
As the Skyway approached, I realized that I still had major problems. Although it appeared that I wasn’t going to be engulfed by any thunderstorms in the near term, the winds were still quite strong for a full Genoa, and I had doubts about whether I could maneuver into the Manatee River without losing control. The channel there is very narrow, and there was a good chance that with a strong gust of wind, the boat could round up faster and stronger than I could counter act, running us out of the channel and aground. The heading up the river appeared to be 120 degrees initially, changing to about 90 degrees. The winds were 030 degrees at about 25 knots. That would be a close reach. I had never even sailed with just my Genoa out before, let alone in 25 knots of wind, so I had no idea how the boat would handle.
I considered that the best thing to do might be to just douse the sail and motor the rest of the way in. That is done by pulling the entire sail out of the roller furler, so I wouldn’t need the furler to work. But that also required facing into the wind to take the strain off the sail (which the autopilot wasn’t capable of) and would also leave me trying to manage this huge sail piled on the deck with 25 knot winds (with even more apparent wind heading into it). It could get very ugly, so I decided against that course of action.
It then dawned on me that if I could drop my anchor, the boat would pretty much hold itself into the wind without any power or need for an autopilot, and so I could take my time dousing the sail. But, after studying the map, I concluded that there were no good anchorages for the existing wind direction anywhere nearby. Fort DeSoto was the only real possibility, but after carefully comparing the wind direction to the lay of the land, I didn’t think there would be enough shelter there to do that.
As I passed under the Sunshine Skyway, now doing 8 knots under just my Genoa!, I felt like I was running out of options. My planned destination was a good anchorage, providing protection from the current and forecast winds. But, I didn’t know if I could get there. And if not, then what? It was a very helpless and scary feeling having too much sail up for the conditions and no way to get it down.
The only other option I could think of was to head offshore and follow all my fellow-DIYC-ers who were racing along the coast south to Naples. This was perfect weather for such a race because the high winds give speed, but the land being between the wind and the boat makes for a relatively smooth ride. I could follow the same path—if the winds didn’t increase, I’d be fine—just heading far south, and having to sail through the night alone (and I was already very exhausted). At this point it was about 6:30 pm. Approaching darkness also added to my stress.
I decided what I would do is continue well past the entrance to the Manatee River channel so that I could turn around, set up a for long approach toward it on the same heading as the channel to see how the boat handled (before I actually got in the narrow channel itself). If the boat handled okay, I could chance continuing into the channel. If it were too difficult to control, I would turn around and head offshore toward a very long and tiring night (and probably a 2-day slog back under motor once the winds died down and I was able to douse the sail).
When I tried heading the boat towards the east, it was unruly, but by being very active and forceful at the wheel, I felt I could control it enough to stay in the channel. I would eventually have to turn almost directly into the wind to get the ½ mile from the channel to the anchorage. I had no idea how I was going to do that with the sail still up, but I would face that problem when I got there. At least the seas and the winds would likely be less in the protection of the anchorage. So, I continued toward the Manatee River channel. It was now about 7:30, with sunset at 8:15. I was stressed about the approaching darkness, but grateful that I had at least gotten here in the daylight; there was no way I would have attempted running that narrow channel in the dark having to man-handle the boat like I was.
It was a lot of work, but we made it successfully down the channel. I was easing the Genoa as much as I could to minimize the heeling (and hence rounding up and out of the channel with big gusts or waves). This brought our speed down to about 3.5 knots. I decided I wanted the engine on as a backup before entering the channel and decided to see if motor sailing would do us better. It did not, but instead seemed to make things worse, so I kept the engine on but in neutral.
The seas gradually decreased from 3 feet (from the beam, which is one of the things that had been making boat control challenging), to flat as I proceeded into the channel and rounded the south side of Emerson Point, although the winds remained strong. After an arduous ½ hour journey down the channel, I was able to depart it on a heading that put the wind about 30 degrees off the port bow so I could pinch toward the anchorage. The wind was a bit shifty, so this was tricky. As we approached the anchorage, I engaged the autopilot and quickly went below to turn on the anchor windlass. In that short 15 seconds of time, the autopilot failed to hold the heading yet again, the Genoa backwinded, and we were heading right for some shallows off our port bow. Since I had already started the motor, I was able to throw the engine in gear and gun it forward to bring the nose back around through the wind. The winds on this side of the land were down to about 15 knots.
While coming down the channel, I had begun formulating a plan on how to set the anchor and how to douse the Genoa, which to do first, how to do it at all, etc. I knew that I didn’t want to be near any other anchored boats in case the wind got a hold of things and we drifted where we shouldn’t. This is a large anchorage, and there were only four other boats there spread far apart (which I was relieved to see), but I still stopped well short of any of them. I followed the plan I had set by letting the boat coast to a stop, letting fly the Genoa sheets so the wind wouldn’t turn us around, then I ran forward and quickly dropped the anchor and about 25’ of chain. After a minute (during which the Genoa was flogging terribly about 90 degrees off the boat), the bow came around into the wind, bringing the Genoa back overboard where I could reach it. I grabbed one of the sheets, the let loose the halyard—but nothing happened. I ran up to the forestay, grabbed the Genoa near the track and pulled—but again, nothing. At this point the sail was still flogging, but it was into the wind, so nothing super violent. Not knowing what else to try, I pulled aft on the sheet, and the entire Genoa just slid nicely down to the deck. I quickly grabbed as much of it as I could to keep it from going in the water or the wind catching it and taking it who knows where, and after a minute got it all under control. Then I was finally able to breath a huge sigh of relief.
I had made it safe into a good anchorage and my boat was undamaged (at least I thought so at the time. It turned out the furler was damaged and would have to be replaced). Now all I had to do was clean things up and re-anchor much closer to land where the other boats were. I did all that, secured the anchor much better the second time, and even had time to crack a beer before darkness set in. It was 8:30 pm. I had originally calculated that the trip would take 6 hours. It had take over 10. Quite a baptism for my first time single-handing Serendipity!
Oh, and it turns out the inflatable paddleboard has a leak at the edge of one of its seems. It’s a good thing that I brought the pump.
Saturday, May 27th
Perfect weather.
After trouble-shooting the Genoa furler for a couple of hours (including hoisting and dousing the Genoa twice!), it was clear that the furler was screwed. Ball bearings were dropping out of the bottom and when hooked up properly, when the furling line was pulled, the spool would just spin while the foil didn’t move. So, I sadly folded up and stowed the Genoa on deck where it sat for the remainder of the trip.
After breakfast, I decided to reposition the boat about ½ mile upstream to the “special anchorage” off Bradenton Yacht club, then went ashore in the late afternoon on the paddleboard (with pump!) took a shower at the club, then met up with Robin Groelle, a friend from Twin Dolphin Marina in Bradenton where we both lived aboard out boats awhile back. She took me to Jigg’s Landing and Linger Lodge, both cool places with old-Florida history.
She brought me back around 10:00 pm, when I re-inflated the now limp paddleboard and made my way back to the boat in the dark. I was amazed to discover that it was impossible to see until I was within a couple hundred feet of it! (I hadn’t turned on the anchor light since it was a Special Anchorage, but in hindsight, I should have because I was the only boat out there, and it was near the entrance to the pass adjacent to the yacht club. Not only would that have been safer, but would have also been easier to find.
Sunday, May 28th
This was a relaxing day. The weather was perfect again, about 75-80 degrees with a gentle, caressing breeze. I caught up on some minor things on the boat, read, relaxed, and took a nap. But by late afternoon, I felt ready for another nap and realized that if I slept again, I’d be up all night, so decided to go back to Bradenton Yacht Club and see what was happening there. Robin met me there, we had a drink, then she left to go bird watching (which I wasn’t in the mood for). I chatted up some people at the bar for a few hours, then went back to the boat during daylight this time. I spent some time testing the electrical system’s power requirements using my newly-installed shunt.
Monday, May 29th
I departed the anchorage at 9:45 enroute to Gulfport to spend the night and meet up with Lou Hodac, an old Coast Guard buddy who also cruised. The forecast called for about 8 knots of wind out of the north for a few hours, then backing to the NW and building to 12-15. The forecast was dead-on this time.
With that forecast, I predicted I could sail out of the Manatee River channel and probably to Egmont Key before having to motor into the wind out Egmont Channel and then into Pass-a-Grille and on to Gulfport. Not having a Genoa, and not wanting to deal with the main unless I had to, but excited to break out the staysail for a change, I weighed anchor (which was evidently buried pretty deep in the mud since for the first time, the windlass was really straining), then turned into the wind, put the engine in idle, hoisted the mizzen, and trimmed it tight to see if that would hold us into the wind. It did, so I had time to hoist the staysail. After it was up, Turned the boat around to the west and headed out the channel on a beam reach. With about 7-8 knots of wind, the staysail and mizzen were only giving me about 2.5 knots. (I might have gotten a bit more out of the staysail, but am limited on tweaking options since the traveler is inop.) After getting to Emerson Point, I realized that at my current speed, I would likely run out of wind long before reaching Egmont Key, and so decided I would pull out of the channel at Emerson Point and hoist the main (with a single-reef, just to balance the boat better). That all went fine, then I re-entered the channel at about 4 knots. Good enough. The channel was very busy with Memorial Day weekend traffic, but it wasn’t an issue as all the motorboaters avoided me and another sailboat heading out.
I sailed to just east of Egmont Key, when, as predicted, the winds died and began to back to the NW. I started the engine, headed into the wind, pulled the mizzen home, let the staysail sheet loose, then doused the main. The newly-installed downhaul line helped, although wasn’t a perfect solution. Once again, the mizzen did a pretty good job of holding the boat into the wind, giving me plenty of time to package the main and then douse and tie-off the staysail. Then I doused the mizzen, packaged it up, and motored out Egmont Channel on the north side of Egmont Key.
As we moved outside, the winds increased to about 15 knots out of the NW. The current was going out of the bay, so we were going into choppy 2-3 footers causing occasional spray into the cockpit and forcing me to close the hatches. I continued motoring west until clear of the shoals, then turned toward Pass-a-Grille. There was lots of rolling with the seas now abeam–mostly 2-3 footers with a very occasional 4-footer. After getting inside at Pass-a-Grille, the rest of the trip motoring to Gulfport was uneventful, but beautiful with lot of boating traffic. I arrived around 3:45 pm. Surprisingly, Gulfport anchorage wasn’t very full, and I found a spot not too far away from the Casino.
After setting the anchor, I inflated the paddleboard, took a quick shower, then paddled to the dinghy dock where I met up with Lou Hodac . We had a very nice conversation over a beer before he had to leave for a previous engagement. I ended up for dinner at a restaurant across the street where there was some live music, and had a nice meal and conversation with Sheera, a very interesting woman who had been an MD, but now was attending Stetson (and she appeared to be in her mid-60’s!) Afterwards, I paddled back to the boat and hit the sack.
Tuesday, May 30th
Around 11:00 am, I departed Gulfport with very light winds which only diminished, as forecast. Not enough to sail, so I motored entire way home at about 2200 RPM which gave me about 6 knots. I was sad to be going back, and had the weather not been forecast to get very hot the next day, I would have stayed longer. I definitely got a taste of how much freedom there would be once I started cruising, and I liked it. I arrived back at DIYC with light winds at 3:30 pm, and docked successfully single-handed! Despite the debacle with the Genoa, it had been a wonderful, motivating trip which changed my attitude a lot. I had previously thought of Serendipity as just a big chore since I had done nothing much else than work on her for two years. But I now saw her as a partner in a great adventure. I was excited!