Santeria Newcastle to Whitby

Neil and Peter were going to take Santeria from her home port in Newcastle to Whitby Yacht Club for the Whitby 50 on Friday night.  A severe thunderstorm warning kept them from going out on the water.

Tonight was the last race for the Whitby summer single handed series.  The forecast was that we would not rain until after 9pm. 

At around 5:30pm the first storm cell came through, so we decided to postpone the race for an hour.  40+ knots gusts were recorded by the WYC weather station had unfurled several jibs on the docks, so we spent some time taking them down for the owners.

At around 7pm another thunderstorm came through, so the race was cancelled.

Met Neil and Peter in the parking lot coming from Newcastle.  I agreed to have Peter drive us to Newcastle and Neil and I would sail Santeria over.   We got off the docks at little after 9pm.  There was about 10 knots of breeze, but it was right on the nose, which meant we would be motoring.  We hoisted a reefed main, and pull the traveller way up to set the sail somewhat to give us some stability in the waves.

With the motor at about 2/3 throttle and reefed main, we could do about 5 knots.  We hooked up the autohelm to make the trip easier.  Had a couple of distant sheet lightning storms off in the lake, and a couple of gust fronts came through with winds in the 20 knots range.  When we got off of Oshawa, we had several 60 degree wind shifts from W to NW, causing the main to tack.  NO ISSUES.

We got into the Whitby harbour mouth at 12:48.  Going down the channel, we started dropping the main, and motor cut out; ran out of gas.  Sail was down, winds were blowing us to the harbour walls, Neil is scrambling add gas to the tank.  We get the motor started, and it stalls again.  We gun the motor in forward and reverse and aren't going anywhere.   With a flashlight we discovered a huge ball of weeds around the prop and lower unit of the motor.  Neil has to clip himself in and hang over the transom get the stubborn weed off.  We drifted all about the harbour:

Tooks us 15 minutes to get the motor going again.  Had to fend off at the bow a couple of times to avoid the harbour walls.

Santeria delivered.


Trip Odometer: 18.43 miles
Moving Avg: 4.7 knots
Moving Time: 03:59:11

Google Earth track: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12535935/Still%20Time/2012/20120621.kmz