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Sailing and Racing on the Albemarle Sound

Text and Photographs by Paul Clayton.

As a change of pace from the usual "around the markers" races that the local sailing clubs hold most weekends, the three active clubs on the north shore of the Albemarle Sound - Edenton Yacht Club, Osprey Yacht Club and Pasquotank River Yacht Club - put on a joint two-day distance race between Albemarle Plantation and Elizabeth City. My friend and sailing partner Taylor Ward, a member of the Edenton Yacht Club, invited me to join him as crew aboard his Hunter 31 Never Enough. My sailing interest is cruising, but I jumped at the chance to try this entirely different aspect of the sport. It didn't hurt that Elizabeth City is one of my favorite destinations.

Taylor and I met on Friday morning at Edenton Marina for the 18 mile (by route) sail to Albemarle Plantation to stage for Saturday's early morning start. The wind was blowing dead up the sound but we had plenty of time, so set the sails and shut down the motor as we passed under the power lines. To my surprise, the Hunter pointed well, inside 60 degrees off the wind, in relatively flat water and 10 to 12 knots of wind - fair conditions. I know, racers will scoff, but for a fat little production boat with worn-out sails, not bad. We arrived at Albemarle Plantation in mid-afternoon, got a slip, and had time for a couple of beers and supper before a quick captain's meeting to go over start time and procedures for the following morning. In order to finish the race, each boat must cover the course between Albemarle Plantation and Elizabeth City the first day and then reverse the course the second - for a total distance of 67.2 miles. The first day start was set to 8:00 AM with 10 hours allowed to cover the course, any boats not completing by 6:00 PM would be judged not to have finished. The second day start would be staggered, with the last boat in the first day leaving first, then the second to last, and so on with each boat in reverse sequence to their finish time the first day.

Saturday morning we were up at 6:00 to allow time for egg and cheese sandwiches and coffee. We left the dock at 7:00 and started motoring out the shallow but well-marked channel to the starting line, just at the mouth of the Yeopim River, in company with the other 11 racers. We drug through the mud for a ways but never came to a complete stop. Most of the other boats had marginally shallower drafts (Never Enough draws 5 1/2 feet) or had local knowledge of the shoals and made it through without touching. At the start line, boats milled about setting sails and checking in with the committee boat, and at 7:54 all boats shut down their engines in preparation for the tricky windward start. At 8:00 the horn sounded and boats started crossing the line. Most of the racers do short sprint races and it is vital to get a good start for them, but truthfully a couple of minutes are unlikely to make a difference in a 30 mile race. We were 10th across the line out of 12 starters and by the end of the race we were 22 minutes behind the boat ahead of us and 8 minutes ahead of the boat behind us. But wait for the end of this story to see how close things can get.

In a few minutes we were out of the land shadow and turning down sound with a strong, gusty wind - 15-20 with gusts up to 30 - coming over the starboard quarter. We made a steady 6 1/2 to 7 1/2 knots for the next couple of hours, surfing off a couple of waves at 8 knots. Some of the faster boats were doing even better and began to stretch out down the sound, while we ran along with a group of five boats of about the same speed. One smaller boat, singlehanded by an older man, was corralled by the committee boat and convinced to return to port, as he had missed the start line and technically hadn't started. I heard later that he was having some trouble controlling his boat and the official was worried about his safety, so all's best that he didn't try to keep going. Frankly, all the boats were oversailed, except for a couple of big ocean racers, and the notorious Albemarle chop was making itself known. And at the turn-in to the Pasquotank River, things were going to get worse.

At 10:30 we could look forward and see the first boats round Marker 1PR and at 11:21 we jibed around it ourselves, just behind Time Machine, Kumbaya and Sweet Thang, with Felicity far astern. Mahogany had dropped out earlier, scored as a Did Not Start. As we came around the corner, the apparent wind shifted slightly forward, and now we were running almost beam to the wind in rough seas as the Albemarle chop ran head-on into the shallow, outflowing waters of the Pasquotank River. The wind backed slightly to the west and now we were on a beam reach in 18-20 knot winds with gusts to 28, doing 6 1/2 to 7 knots. Sweet Thang was sagging off to the lee as we pushed Never Enough to her utmost capacity, and we gradually crept up on her and passed her. Next in our sights was Time Machine, which Kumbaya had slipped past as we were duking it out with Sweet Thang. We slowly eased up on her and worked our way to windward, and I thought we had a decent chance of passing her. Then we got an especially vicious gust, Never Enough went far enough over to her starboard to lift the rudder mostly out of the water, and she rounded up in a thunder of white water. Taylor dumped the main sheet and the boat straightened out and started sailing again, but after this we eased the main a bit and lost any change of catching Time Machine. Even so, we rounded up a couple more times in the course of the afternoon, as did Kumbaya and Time Machine. For the next couple of hours as we ran up the river, I wrestled the wheel chock to chock while Taylor played the main sheet like a dinghy racer until as we approached Elizabeth City the wind eased a little and continued to back, eventually leaving us close-hauled. We ended up having to take a couple of tacks as we approached the finish line.

The first boat in, Go With the Flo, covered the course in 4 hours and 43 minutes. It took us 5 hours and 37 minutes, and the last boat in, Felicity, which suffered a gear failure early in the race, took 6 hours and 16 minutes. The total spread of an hour and a half over a 34 mile track suggests good, tight racing. But all the race time statistics are a tiny part of it, sailboat handicapping and race scoring make golf seem like child's place. Sweet Thang, which followed us in with a 5 hour 46 minute elapsed time, scored second overall because of handicap. And Felicity, which came in 11th and scored 11th with handicap, was going to be well-placed for Sunday's event. More on that later.

By early afternoon all the boats were tied up on the Elizabeth City waterfront, and crews were winding down from a hard day on the water. I walked up to the Kraken coffeeshop and cadged a tote of ice, then back aboard Never Enough started mixing Dark & Stormies and passing them out to anyone close enough to hail. I have known sailors to make the trip to Bermuda basically to go ashore for a Dark & Stormy, return to their boat and sail home (the prices in Bermuda are so swingeing that few can afford to spend more than a few minutes ashore), so I figured I would give everyone a chance at the Newport to Bermuda Race experience without having to belong to the 1%.

I was shocked to hear that most of the racers had arranged to be picked up by their wives and taken home for the night, but considering that most of them live 45 minutes or less from the Elizabeth City waterfront, I guess it makes sense. A big difference between cruisers and racers - cruisers like camping out on the boat, racers evidently don't. Usually when cruisers reach port, they get together for a party and late-night drinking session, but the racers are more homebodies. Taylor lives almost two hours from Elizabeth City, and anyway he has enough cruiser blood in him that he didn't call Gail to come get him. With most of the sailors gone, we didn't get the late night fun, but did walk down to the Seven Sisters Brewery for a nightcap.

For the second day of racing, the boats would start in reverse order to Saturday's finish, staggered by the actual time across the finish line. In other words, Felicity which had come in last due to a gear issue would leave first, at 8:00. That gave her a good chance to win the race since she is by no means a slow boat. Sweet Thang started second at 8:30, we started third at 8:38, Kumbaya and Time Machine a few minutes later, and so on to Go With the Flo which had the fastest time on Saturday and started at 9:33. We all stayed in that order down the river, made the turn at 1PR and ran up the sound with plenty of wind but not quite as rough and blustery as Saturday. We caught a puff just as we rounded the marker, and even with the main sheeted down tight, the boom went across with a bang and sail slugs ripped out of the mast track like a breaking zipper. Gradually we overhauled and passed Sweet Thang which put us in second place, but no chance to catch Felicity unless she broke something again. The winds began to fade as we gazed agonizingly at the finish line which would require tacking to reach. Our boat, which had performed so well, started to wallow and lose headway - there just wasn't enough wind to make her point and keep speed. Behind us, we could see Lift Ticket, a notably fast J-27 and capable light (or heavy) air boat, rocketing up to our windward, and we resigned to seeing her pass. A small, light boat like Lift Ticket benefits from holding down weight, and Lift Ticket has the lightest possible crew - the Captain's nine year old son. Felicity suffered the same fate as the little J-Boat scooped her at the last minute and took first place. Now we set our sights on third, but bearing down to windward came big Baltic 39 Knot So Fast. She passed us just short of the finish line. At the last minute, a fluky wind blew her head off and it looked as if she would miss the finish line and have to go around, letting us sneak in for third, but her able crew forced her back to windward and she finished just feet in front of us. By this time the fleet was piling up behind us, making their tacks toward the finish line, and there was probably some exciting racing as they jockeyed for position. We were occupied with getting sail in and motoring up the channel to the Albemarle Plantation marina.

Monday we motor-sailed back to Edenton with a nice following wind. We set the jib but not the main as there was hardly a slug left in the track above the spreaders. We certainly would have finished third, maybe second, if we had been able to get a decent set to the main. One thing this race made clear, distance racing in strong wind is punishing to boat and crew alike. We lost main slugs, as well as pinching the jib furling line and almost severing it. Sweet Thang lost so many slugs that they dropped out of the race and headed directly for their home port at Mackey's. Felicity suffered some kind of jib sheet breakage that took them at least a half hour to sort out, and another boat jumped a steering chain right at the finish line and had to be towed to the dock. Those are the things I heard about and there were no doubt more. Nobody got injured, thankfully. If I had been sailing my boat, we would have come in last. I would have had a reef, maybe two, in the main, and it would have been a much safer, more comfortable and more civilized way to sail, but these racers get the blood lust and carry sail until they break a stick or cross the finish line.