GCBSR 2004
I had the pleasure of crewing on Grand Nellie in "THE GREAT CHESAPEAKE BAY SCHOONER RACE" for 2004. I met some new friends, got to know some better and had fantastic learning experience. Captain Jeff Troeltzsch, Mate Kyle Stephan, Navigator Tom Tursi, Crew Anne Hawley, Carla Pyle, Denise Tontarski, Maggie Fenton, Mo Newman and Me. Below are two accounts of this great adventure.
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BRMSA (Bay Region Mariners Sailing Association) sailors Anne, Carla and Denise headed south on October 10th to Norfolk to begin our adventure aboard the 65 foot Schooner Grand Nellie. It was kind of scary, after filling out all of the forms asking for a resume of our sailing experience, although vast for each of us, we felt limited somewhat in our knowledge of racing and very inadequate. Meeting the rest of the crew only caused this feeling to increase.
Billy is one of the instigators of the Race What You Brung Around Kent Island Race and seems very experienced in sail trim and boat handling – he teaches for Maryland School of Sailing. Maggie is from Ohio and sails and races an Island Packet 38 on Lake Erie. Since her husband passed away two years ago she has been taking ASA classes to increase her proficiency. Mo has crewed on schooners before and has been on Grand Nellie a number of times as had Maggie. Jeff, our Captain, and the owner of Grand Nellie is very competent and pushes crew to and beyond their limits to expand their experiences and skill sets. Kyle, the mate, is 23 and a great young man and a very skilled and knowledgeable captain himself. He recently received his ticket for Master of Sail Oceans 100 ton. Tom Tursi (of Md. School of Sailing) was the navigator for the race and our instructor in that aspect of our experience.
We arrived in Little Creek at the foot of the Bay just inside the Bay Bridge Tunnel and boarded our home for the next 7 days. On arrival, Jeff informed us that he would like to leave as soon as possible and to please get our stuff on board. We dumped our stuff on the bunks in the peak and helped to slip the lines and away we went into a windy bay as dusk approached. We motored out of the mouth of Little Creek into a wind that was on the nose and we headed north and raised the sails as the sun disappeared into the western shore horizon. We were divided into two watches and began our shipboard life. Four hours on and four off became the routine and I have to admit that at the end of four hours we dropped into the closest bunk exhausted. Battling up the bay through the night it became clear that we were not gaining any ground very fast and when dawn came we were still very much in the lower bay.
Mate Kyle and Capt Jeff
The wind had blown all night at 30 knots and the waves had really piled up. Waves breaking on the bow had dumped LOTS of water into the peak berths– you guessed it – OURS! (Something had slipped loose on the forepeak companionway cover and gave the water free entrance!) Anne and Denise had no dry clothes and nowhere to lay their weary bodies and by morning Anne was ready to jump ship. But, as day dawned and we got things cleaned up the thought of Baltimore and hot showers and clean dry clothes perked up her spirits a lot and she was able to join in the shipboard grind and fun with the best of us.
Denise and the Parade of Boats in Baltimore
We got a lot of help from the current and as the wind moderated through the day, stomachs settled and we were able to begin enjoying the tasks at hand. The galley was a 24 hour deal and there was always something hot to drink and something delicious to eat. Jeff is a great cook and we all got our hand in the mix and helped out. We were thrown right into it and we worked the wheel, the deck and the nav station as if we had been doing it forever. It was learn as you go and I highly recommend it- reading about it is fine, but jumping in and doing it is the way to really increase the learning curve. No question was ridiculed and all of us felt that we had learned a lot on the trip up. It also created a team atmosphere on board. Everyone worked hard and contributed to the process of sailing and making our way up bay. This really prepared us for whatever the race would bring. Having triumphed over the wind and heavy seas on our trip north all of us felt better prepared for the race down bay. We arrived in Baltimore 36 hours after we left Little Creek, weary but exhilarated from our experience.
Once in Baltimore all of the pre-race activities started and the real excitement for the starting gun began to build. There was a pre-race party sponsored by Mount Gay Rum – think red hats! A parade of boats around the inner harbor with cannons going off as one passed the Constellation and Pride II and a dinner the night before, complete with a group singing Sea Chanties and an area where one could purchase clothing and hats with the race logo embroidered or printed on each. It was a fun respite for the crew and was enjoyed by all. The afternoon before the race in checking over the engine Jeff discovered that there was sea water in the transmission and there were hours spent bending down into the engine room trying to find the cause of the problem and fixing it. The heat exchanger was the culprit and Billy found a car and drove to Edgewater to get the new part. All part of sailing, as we all know.
Kyle and Carla
Thursday
dawned and we prepared for the race south. Everything
was stowed, properly this time in case of a repeat with
the water in the peak and we head out and down the
Patapsco to the starting line area just below the Bay
Bridge. Two YPs are used for the ends of the starting
line and the boats begin their jockeying for position.
The 10 minute warning sequence begins and things get
very quiet on the boat with only the Captain talking
about our strategy and the crew making the
requested
changes and positioning ourselves to act as soon as
needed. A chute is brought up on deck and rigged to be
raised as soon as we get our start and a second chute is
brought up and readied for raising as well. There are
more than a dozen sails on board, including the remnants
of the one that was blown out on the trip north. We are
one of the first of the AA and A class schooners across
the start line on the gun and head out and down the
western side of the bay toward Bloody Point and beyond.
It is so exciting for those of us who haven’t raced
before and we are all eager to see how this will play
out. It seems that even those of us who do not race,
are competitors at heart and love to see other boats
being left to our sterns as we blow by them.
Pioneer
This race had a slow
beginning. We started at 1330 and by dusk are ghosting
by Poplar Island and heading south, down the bay. The
Grand Nellie and some of the other large, steel and iron
boats have a distinct disadvantage in the very light air
typical of the Chesapeake, and just the opposite in the
heavy winds and seas that it can throw at you. So we
ghosted down the bay through the night. In the early
hours of the morning the wind began to build and the
Grand Nellie speeded up and caught up and passed most of
the schooners that had gone past in the dark. The
watches worked hard to give our boat the advantage of
wind and current and as we entered the darkness again it
was with the feeling that once again we were in the
front of the pack with the leaders and that there was a
chance for us to place in the race.
Tom, Carla, Denise and Anne working Navigation
Finally
we were turned to head across the finish line and we
were flying all of the canvas we could. Without reefs
we were screaming down the bay and the boat was driving
toward the finish line like we had Mario Andretti at the
helm. All hands were up and alert to be at the finish
line and it was with great jubilation that we crossed at
2220:51 hours. We turned into the wind and took down
the sail and tried to motor into Norfolk and the
Elizabeth River. The current was running out of Hampton
Roads and pushing us backwards as we tried to motor into
the channel and down through the Roads. Finally, at
0400 we slipped into the area that was assigned as our
berth and we tied it up and went below for a well
deserved rest. We had experienced a good start, no wind,
wind, more wind, huge waves, thunder, lightning, rain
and green water over the bow and triumphed- a win in
itself!
Jeff giving out orders while I stand by
Saturday was beautiful- warm with a light breeze, sunny and bright. We showered, drank lots of coffee, gobbled Crispy Creams and munched on fruit from a delivered fruit basket as we got ready to go to the pig roast and awards ceremony where we would find out if we had won a place. The captain and mate were taking care of all of the little jobs that need to be done after a passage. Pumping the holding tank was one of the jobs and having a vacuum toilet makes the pumping an exciting event – we had a geyser of s#$% ! The captain’s only remark was that the crew was really full of it…
Anne and Kyle
It really was a victory to finish the race – many of the boats had dropped out the previous night and had pulled into the Patauxent and the Rappahannock to lick their wounds. Booms were broken, mail sails blown out, rudders broken (one boat hit a 30 foot partially submerged log) and all manner of damage done to the fleet. Some of the smaller boats just couldn’t handle the conditions. We had a bent tang on the forestay and as it turned out, if we had gone on too much longer it might .have given way and taken the top rigging with it. So, it was a race to remember. We went to the picnic wearing our Schooner Race Tees – our ticket in. There we opened and slurped oysters, drank beer and ate barbeque pig with all of the fixins. Finally we got to the awards ceremony where we found that we had finished a close third. Three boats all within minutes of each other on adjusted time! It is amazing that boats could sail almost 200 miles and finish so close- but, that is the nature of the game. Only 8 boats finished out of the 29 that began the race.
We accompanied the Grand
Nellie back to her berth at Little Creek on Sunday
morning and drove up Route 13, back home. It was a
wonderful week – full of excitement, exhilaration and
yes, some trepidation… but, we would all do it again in
a heartbeat. We honed skills that we didn’t even know
we had, and learned new ones. We learned about VMG and
target boat speed and the effects of current vectors and
so much more that cannot be put on paper, but is now
part of our collective memories. We will miss Jeff,
Kyle and the rest of the crew, but now our boats will be
more efficiently and effectively sailed whether we are
just going across the bay, or on a longer cruise. What
is the next horizon? Who knows?
Carla Pyle, BRMSA
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The Fisherman Takedown
We were in the 28th hour of the race when the wind velocity increased. We’d experienced the whole range of conditions – almost no wind to nice cruising wind and now it was getting a little beyond nice. The storm had given us a steady 15 – 20 and the forecast said it was supposed to hold. After all, the storms had passed so the wind should decrease, right? Not right. The cold front hadn’t pushed through yet.
Billy and I had been primary deck crew for most of the race. Denise was there some of the time but the two of us seemed to have better footing on deck and Kyle had been using us for tacks, haul-ups, take-downs and everything else that was needed on the foredeck. And don’t forget to tack the Lunenburg on your way back! We were plenty tired as the watch system had sort of gone out the window so we could be up on deck when we were needed.
So, there we were – lots of sail up, including the fisherman, the smaller sail that flew at the top of the rigging and was supposed to come down before the winds ever exceeded 20 knots. At 30 knots, Jeff knew it wasn’t going to get any better and sent us forward to take it down. By this time, we’re also crashing through some pretty heavy seas – the winds coming from the south have had a pretty good chance to build up and hit the mouth of the Chesapeake with a hammer. This wasn’t going to be a walk in the park on a nice summer evening. Kyle put Billy and the forward halyard and me on the rear one; Kyle was going to control the sheet and guy. We were all hooked onto the boat. I laid on my back with my feet against the cabin so I could use by whole body to control the take down. I think Billy was in a similar position on the front guy but I couldn’t tell because my back was to him and the wind was howling so loudly I couldn’t hear anything anyway. Kyle yelled for us to start the sail started coming down. At one point, I heard Kyle yell “Hold On!” and I held. I felt the ship’s bow go down , heard a whoosh and the next thing I knew, green water was covering the foredeck, including all of us! Not wasting another second, we kept lowering the sail until finally it was on the deck. Billy and I both tackled it, laying our bodies across it and folding it into a manageable heap as best we could. Kyle joined us and we just tied it down on the foredeck so it wouldn’t wash away. The three of us staggered back to the cockpit, wet, worn but exhilarated from the good work we had done.
Even the cranky captain said “nice job.”
Maggie Fenton
Simple Pleasures
(IP350 - 53)