I have sailed the Chesapeake a lot, but I have no qualms about sailing it at night, provided you follow the rules, so to speak. It is seldom crowded except in certain locations, and those can be dealt with.
I once had an experience sailing single handed, an encounter with a tug and tow on the Cpk. I had been sailing for over two days with very light winds on the nose, and was exhausted. It was late in the AM. I kept thinking I was about to run aground even though I was pretty sure I was a ways from any shoals, (this was in the days before GPS or radar on small boats). My mind was playing tricks on me and I knew it so I finally decided to 'pull over' and anchor. I did not have a depth sounder only a short lead line, and since it was patchy fog and dark I couldn't see any land, so I gave my best guess as to being out of any shipping channel. I was napping in the cockpit when I saw the lights of a tug heading my way. My battery was too low to power the VHF but binocs gave evidence he was towing and headed right for me! I attempted to raise anchor hurriedly, I say attempted because there was about a hundred feet of scope down and most of it seemed to be straight down, and at that time I had no windless. Thankfully I was in my 20's then and very fit and made relatively fast progress in getting the anchor aboard (with about thirty pounds of mud on it)and sails up. The barge was a double tow and he passed quite close. He could not have stopped if he had had to. But now with GPS and everything, it very is easy to do the Chesapeake safely at night. With all the nav aids on the bay, in some ways it is easier at night than day, as long as you don't trust only them and try to get into an unknown harbor, for example. Of course, I do avoid crossing behind any tugs path at night no matter where I am. -Ken _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
