Out of the frying pan… shoals
From Beaufort to Soutport
It’s Thursday morning and there is a great weather window for 3 days to get as far south as possible. I wake up to a text message from Walter (the captain of the boat behind me) saying he woke up in the middle of the night with my boat right next to his - and he adjusted his anchor to get out of my way. #)@$#% What is going on with my anchor? For reals? Is it slipping, is the current changing? I’ll need to figure this out sometime soon. Anyway I go up to the cockpit and see his boat and his friends boat leaving the anchorage to head down the ICW. I think to myself, farewell and have a great journey - never thinking I would see them again.
I pull up anchor and set off at 7:30 am. I’m able to do a bit of sailing but fairly quickly I find myself heading directly into the wind. I motor sail for a while until the main starts to flap too much and finally take all the sails down. Sailing south from Beaufort, you need to go around Cape Fear and an area of shoaling known as the Frying Pan shoals. Even though the waves should be fairly calm, I find it to be quite choppy. Maybe this is a less severe case of Cape Hatteras?
Just as I’m passing the tip of the Frying Pan shoals at 4 am my engine dies! WTF? I try to start it again and it dies right away (while I’m trying to brainstorm, my boat is like a cork in turbulent waters - being tossed around without any direction).
Ok - what’s the problem?
1. Am I out of fuel? I dash below to check, but I still have half a tank (thank God I didn’t need to try to refuel from jerry cans in these waves).
2. Did something catch in the prop to stall the engine? Ok, once before I caught a lobster trap (granted not while motoring) and turned the boat in a circle to drop the line. I take the jib out (I’m not confident I can take the main out of the in mast furler while not controlling the direction of the boat) and turn the boat in a 360. But what now? I don’t want to start the engine in case there is a line caught up in it - it will just foul even more (such faulty logic - who would have a lobster pot this far out?!?). But I decide to see if I can move the boat a fair distance away to determine that the boat is not caught on line. Granted I’m sailing away from my destination (which has since changed to the nearest harbor - Southport) but I need to rule out this possibility. I’m able to sail a fair distance away and decide I’m not caught on anything.
I try to start the engine and it dies again. At this point I realize that I will need to get towed in. I open my BoatUS app and request a tow. I get a reply fairly quickly with an ETA of about 2 and a half hours. Do I keep the sail up moving away from the harbor and the tow boat or do I drop the sail and wait for the tow? To be honest, it’s a bit of a blur and I’m not totally sure of the order of things.
I try to start the engine again - it starts, and I keep it in neutral (again thinking if there is something caught in the prop I don’t want to tangle it more). I keep it in neutral and rev it - it continues to run; I take it out of neutral and tentatively put it into gear. It is still running! Phew? I start heading towards Southport which is about 17 miles away. I had noticed that I was going much slower than expected while motoring but had chalked that up to current (although now I’m not so sure it wasn’t a failing motor). So going between 3-5 knots would take me somewhere around 4 hours to get into Southport. I get a call from BoatUS saying they are about to depart. I let them know that my engine is running and that I am making my way towards Southport. We agree they should standby and that I will let them know if my engine fails again.
Dawn is breaking (actually dawn broke a while ago - it’s about 9 am) as I approach the channel into Southport. I should feel relieved but actually I’m more nervous than ever that my engine will fail and the current will sweep me into a marker or another vessel! There will be even less time to take corrective action coming into the harbor and even a marina (I have already made reservations at a marina and have let them know I’m coming in on my own - i.e. I will need help docking). The channel is quite choppy all the way in and I stay low and tethered in as I arrange the lines and fenders.
I make it into the slip around 10:30 am - a complete nervous wreak - but thankful to be safe. There was much questioning of my life decisions.