Maritime Annapolis by Rosemary F. Williams

Author:Rosemary F. Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2012-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

“THE SAILING CAPITAL”

The Chesapeake Bay is widely known as a sailor’s paradise, with 4,480 square miles of boating and fishing enjoyment, but it is still small enough for a boater to quickly duck into a harbor or gunk hole when the weather turns bad. The sandy and muddy bottom is more forgiving than the rocks of New England, and the bay’s shipping channel is the width of just two freighters, providing plenty of room for everyone. Appealing to even the novice boater, the bay provides seven solid months of sailing, with Labor Day as the unofficial kickoff for its best sailing season—the fall.

During the hot summer months, Chesapeake sailors learn to keep a watchful eye on the horizon for “Chesapeake dusters”—squalls that hit hard and with a sudden intensity, usually in the late afternoons.

The pattern is predictable. While sailing along in a nice breeze, a sudden hot humidity will descend and the breeze disappears. Off to the west-northwest, the sky has a distinct copper-colored glow followed by a line of black clouds advancing over the bay. Soft, fluffy gray clouds develop, and a sudden chill drops minutes before the wind hits. Suddenly, short, steep waves build up, accompanied by a stinging torrential rain. Many sit out the fifteen-to twenty-minute storm while others head for the nearest shelter. Either way, the grand finale makes it almost worth it—a red, blazing sky accompanied by a cool breeze as the sun begins to set.130

Molly Winans, editor of SpinSheet, the popular, free, monthly magazine dedicated to sailing on the Chesapeake, warns against using the word “yacht” when speaking of sailing in Annapolis. “Yachting is Newport,” said Winans. “Yachting implies something big; one-hundred-foot yachts that draw ten to twelve feet that you don’t usually see in Annapolis. The bay is perfect for sailing the popular thirty-five-foot sailboat that draws only five to six feet.”

Shallow draft is important; the depth of the bay averages about twenty-one feet. Constantly shifting shoals and often treacherous navigation cause even seasoned sailors to run aground miles from shore. While traumatic to the captain, running aground outside Annapolis is considered by many a rite of passage. It is not uncommon to sail by a boat that is heeled over to one side, with captain and crew enjoying a beer on the high side as they wait for a rising tide to lift them off the shoal. Hitting bottom is not a new issue; the collector of customs in Annapolis in 1887 offered a tersely worded warning about the shifting shallows in his annual report to the U.S. engineer based in Baltimore:

The necessity to the commerce of Annapolis of cutting away the bars of Horn and Greenbury Points, at the entrance of our harbor, seems more urgent every year as the business of the city grows…Several vessels loaded with coal, lumber, ice, etc., have grounded therein…The liability of large vessels in entering our harbor of grounding will result in such vessels refusing to freight here, thus driving our merchants to other means of freighting, which will greatly increase the cost of such articles to be borne by the consumers.

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