CC Yacht Delivery: Wanderer from MD to Carolina Beach

For those that have followed the trip of M/V Bear from Wilmington, NC up to NJ, now I basically get to turn around and go back the way I came.

I finished my delivery of Bear and went straight to my next trip. I drove on Saturday from Cape May, NJ to Ridge, MD where I picked up a 2006 Mainship 34-foot Trawler named Wanderer. She has a single 370hp Yanmar diesel that cruises around 15kts.

I set off Sunday morning at 6:30am trying to beat the weather down the Chesapeake Bay. The weather was expected to turn ugly in the afternoon so I was trying to get off the bay and into protected water as quickly as possible. The seas were a choppy 2-4 feet on the quartering stern with the wind NE at 20kts. It wasn’t too bad of a ride, but the Mainships are really meant to do 8kts. She didn’t really like trying to run on plane in a following sea.

Fortunately, I did make it down to Norfolk, VA by 1:00pm. Now all I had to do was get through the bridges south of Norfolk and I would be on my way to Coinjock, NC. Since it was a weekend, the bridges did not have a restricted opening schedule as they do during the week, so I was able to get through all the bridge mess in an hour and half. Things were looking great and I was looking forward to getting in an hour earlier than expected.

The weatherman hit the forecast right on as things started to go south in the afternoon. It began to rain around 2:30 as I was going through Great Bridge Lock and the wind began to really howl around 3:00. As I came across a very bumpy Core Sound, I noticed the engine beginning to hesitate and I started to lose some RPM. I immediately knew with the rough seas and rocking and rolling of the boat, that it was likely a clogged Racor fuel filter.

I was able to make it into Coinjock around 5:30. It was way too rough to try and stop in the middle of the sound and replace the filter then. Once I got tied up to the dock, I did go down in the engine room and change out the Racor. The picture below of the filter speaks volumes about maintenance. This is very typical for a delivery. Boat sits unused for a long period of time. The previous owner does minimal maintenance. Then you hit some weather and bingo, you have a real mess that can be dangerous. I was just glad I wasn’t 50 miles offshore without a spare filter when it happened. I was very happy to be only 12 miles from stopping for the night.

Now comes the real kick in the shorts. This morning it is still raining and the wind is really blowing hard, around 25kts out of the NE. I turn on the VHF radio and the first thing I hear from the Coast Guard is the Alligator River Swing Bridge (clearance 12 feet) is closed due to high winds. There goes the opportunity to make any distance today.

So I sit at the marina in Coinjock today and wait for the wind to die down. Days like today drive me crazy. You can’t fix bad weather.