My introduction to blue water sailing began inauspiciously when I answered the phone one morning in the spring of 2003. The caller was an independent contractor in the paint shop of our local Zimmermans Marina, who was also the seasonally- hired captain of the sailing vessel Rosa. Rosa was behind schedule for delivery to New York City, and Capt B was looking for help in getting her ready. I reported for work after lunch, and worked on her for two weeks.
Partly as a result of that, I was invited to serve as a crew member on the delivery to NYC in June, and later in the fall, to bring Rosa back to the Chesapeake Bay. We departed early one morning in June, and had just cleared the shipping channel at the mouth of the Bay when the engine quit. Capt B got out his cell phone and called Zimmerman's best mechanic who gave him some ideas....which might have included: 'hit it with a bigger hammer.' (There always seemed to be hammering going on with the engine!)
By that time we were pointed in the right direction, and the wind was favorable, so we raised sail and headed north. We made it to NYC in second to the record time of around 49 hours. During the safety briefing, I suggested to Capt B that he assign different tasks to each crew member in case of emergency, e.g. someone gets the EPIRB; someone gets the inflatable dinghy; etc.. He allowed he could handle an emergency himself.
We sailed the wind, which over time took us offshore. As I was going off watch at 2 in the morning on one of the two nights we were at sea, somebody observed that we were 50 miles out to sea (the distance from Florence to Coos Bay, OR). I suggested to the watch member(s) coming on that we should change course to point more toward New York rather than our current heading toward Nova Scotia.
I went to bed, but shortly after, all hands were called up for a sail and course change. I was assigned the task of handling the halyard (line which holds a sail up), for the foresail we needed to drop. Capt B went up on the bowsprit (hopefully with a safety line attached), and I dropped the sail.....well, the air turned blue with verbal abuse, because he was surrounded by sail and apparently hadn't been ready. (Thinking back, I probably should have called out: "prepare to drop the foresail," and he should have answered: "ready.") Another time when I was, fortunately, not on watch, the hard shell dinghy which was being towed, surfed down a wave and put a fairly large ding in the taftrail (back part of the boat).
Approaching NYC, we left Staten Island to port (our left side); went under the Verrazano Narrows bridge, into something called the Upper Bay. From there we entered the East River, leaving Manhattan to port, and having timed the tides right, successfully went through something called Hells Gate (where the East River meets the head of Long Island Sound). We then motored into the marina at City Island (Bronx), secured the boat and caught a flight back to Virginia.
The trip south in the fall was similar, except we were weathered in at Cape May, N.J., for two days, then, while counting on a wind shift further south, which didn't occur, we were headed toward Bermuda. The expressions on the faces of Capt B (& one other more experienced sailor than me) became more grim, and we finally motored toward the mouth of the Bay. When we came up the Bay (basically on 'fumes'), I came back on 'watch' about 30 minutes early thinking that the Capt or the other more experienced sailor might want to enter the unlighted day markers into the GPS. The Capt was sorting around looking for flashlights (with which to find day markers). We were moving kind of fast, and were tardy in requesting an opening of the Gwynn's Island Bridge. In the process of slowing down for the bridge to open, the engine died. We were in a channel about 40' wide. Fortunately, the other more experienced sailor was up front and able to drop an anchor. We limped into the gas dock of the yacht club at 4 in the morning with no sign of fuel showing on the dip stick.
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