(see http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?KG4EYP for latest position)

I wrote up an entry last night, but wasn't able to get into the system to post it. Good thing, because everything's changed since then!

Last night I wrote: The whole point of going offshore is so that we can sail. There's no wind out here now. We are a motorboat. If we're going to be a motorboat we might as well be a motorboat in the ICW, so we can actually sleep at night. So we've decided to bug out of this motoring gig and head away from the Gulf Stream in another 26 miles or so - we're just on the edge as it is - and enter the ICW at Winyah Bay, near Georgetown, SC. If all goes well we should be there by early afternoon
tomorrow.

But this morning around 4 am, the wind filled in, and it's a nice southwesterly breeze, pulling us along at a fine speed. When I crawled out of bed a few hours ago, we were 30 miles out of Winyah Bay; it didn't take much discussion for us to decide to turn more to the east and keep going. We're no longer in the Gulf Stream, but that's okay. If the winds hold (and I guess that is a big IF - the forecasts haven't exactly been reliable!) we should be at Cape Lookout tomorrow morning.

The big excitement last night happened around 2 am. Britt was sleeping and I had just gone below to check the radar. (I usually spend most of my night watches in the cockpit, because I like looking at the stars.) Then, through the constant loud drone of the motor, I more felt than heard a quiet ka-THUNK.

I raced out to the cockpit. Something was wrong. There was a change in the note of the usual noises, just at the edge of hearing. But it took me a minute or so to figure out what: the engine RPM was fine, the gauges read normal. Then I looked at our speed - we'd been going 6.5 knots, but now we were going 4.5.

I turned on the flashlight we keep in the cockpit and shone it on the stern of the boat, and instantly I saw the problem: somehow our propeller had snagged a length of sturdy braided rope as thick around as my wrist, maybe an old piece of fisherman's net. Immediately I put the engine in neutral and woke Britt.

Fortunately, we didn't have to go swimming. I held the light, and Britt yanked on the rope with our gaff hook, and after maybe five minutes of working it, the rope floated free. We put the motor gently in reverse, to spin off any bits that might have wrapped around the prop, and then back in forward, and everything seemed okay.

And yay, we aren't using it now, anyway. It's so lovely to be sailing again.
- posted by S/V Windom @ 6/17/2007 [link]