Sarah's Creek....................from P

from N 37-15.518 W 76-28.392. Our first leg! We are setting nicely at anchor in Sarah's Creek off the historic York River after a full day of sailing up the Bay yesterday. My brother lives on this creek so our destination had ulterior motives of a nice steak dinner off the grill along with great conversation and cigars. I know, it won't always be this way. But - you have to enjoy these opportunities when they come along.

Yesterday was not without its inaugural sailing excitement. It was stormy and rainy most of the day, but the breeze was steady between 12 and 17 kts. The problem with stormy conditions (thankfully no lightning yesterday) is that the wind swirls around from different directions unexpectedly. Toward the end of the day we were motor-sailing comfortably under the genoa only, when one of those swirly winds suddenly back-winded the gennie. When I released the now windward sheet to allow the sail to tack over, the wind suddenly came from behind and whipped the genoa straight out off the bow. It was flying like a flag forward of the boat. In the process the wayward genoa pulled the sheets out of the lead cars and I saw sheets first flying free then dropping into the water over the starboard side. I know what happens when that happens, so I threw the motor into neutral and went forward to find that the sheets were tight in the water and leading astern. Oh no. My first thought was that they are wrapped around the prop and we are dead in the water. Nice start to the trip. About now, K popped up from her nap and repeated our time tested mantra - What Are We Doin ?! After securing the clew of the gennie with another line, I was able to pull one sheet free - but the other one was stuck somewhere (yes it looks like it is leading down toward the prop). After a short prayer to St. Brendan I started making mental plans to either pull out my new dive gear and use my newly learned skills under somewhat dangerous windy conditions (but the boat is drifting fast) or calling Boat U.S. for a tow (not on our first day!). For some reason I glanced over to the port side and my eyes fell onto a knotted end of the fouled sheet - it was still jammed into the port side lead car and held by a knot I had tied into the end of the sheets, specifically to prevent losing them through the lead cars. Thank you St. Brendan. I untied the knot and was then able to pull the sheet from starboard, all the way back from under the boat. As I was doing it I could feel it coming across the keel and then up on the prop shaft - but it came free! It had flown forward, stopped at the knot, dropped into the drink, and looped all the way under the boat like a jump rope. If I had not thrown the motor into neutral quickly enough, my fears of a fouled prop would have come true. But - not this time! The amazing thing is that all of this happened in a span of maybe two or three minutes. We quickly settled back into a comfortable sail turning from the Bay up into the York river.

For my own learning process, I am going to follow the format of Sail Magazine and list the things I did right, and things I learned for next time:

Things I did right:
- moved the motor to neutral the instant I saw a line in the water.
- resisted the temptation to put the motor in reverse to "unwind" the line from the prop. As it turns out, it was not around the prop and this would have surely created a new problem.
- secured the clew of the genoa to get it under control and to be able to safely handle the sheets tied thereto.

Things I learned for next time:
- ensure there are big enough "stop knots" at the end of each sheet to prevent the sheets from pulling free and getting out of control.
- before assuming the worst, do a more thorough "look around". I could have seen the secured sheet sooner.

All of this just made the glass of wine with dinner last night tasted all the better.

Onward to the north today.