Sailing with My Family

This past Sunday - Wednesday, my brothers and I descended upon our parents in Newport News for a few days of sailing. This began as a grand adventure idea that included overnights in a larger boat with a trip up the Chesapeake to Tangier Island. But given our busy schedules and other factors we limited it to some local sails in the James River.

Now the James River is in my sailing blood. I grew up trailing my Sunfish down to Hilton School, putting in the water, and sailing up and down the north bank. In my high school days, I spent my summers up at the York Yacht Club in their sailing program. We sailed out Deep Creek into the James. So a few days sailing familiar waters was full of good memories.

Our first day (Monday) was a very light day. We did just a little more than float. In the above photo, you can see how light the air was. Still we persevered and stayed out about 3 hours. John had to leave to make it back to the DC area. So we said good-bye to him with the hope that we can do this again.

Our second day was a lot better - wind wise. We sailed about 6.1 nautical miles and averaged about 4.5 knots. Pretty good for the Sea Pearl. We made it almost all the way across the James, but the weather began to look ominous. So choosing safety over more hours, we cut the sail short. We were out about 1.5 hours.

I am hopeful that this is something that we will be able to do again. It was great reconnecting with dad and my brothers doing something that we were raised to do. Having been land-locked for so long, I treasure any amount of sailing time that I get. I'll be down at Hatteras in a few weeks with my family, and I am looking forward to getting my Sunfish in the sound.