Diners with a Sailing problem

Three of the 4 boats registered for the Labor Day 2025 Cruise to Lake Worth made it and it was worth the trip.

Friday Eximius left the dock and heard on VHF that Aireze was already heading out of the Hillsboro Inlet, it was a really calm day and they were not going fast even though their Catamaran had full sails flying.

Eximius cleared Atlantic Blvd bridge and then 14th street bridge, getting inline for the 9:30am opening of the Hillsboro Inlet Bridge and then continuing to motor out of the inlet, still in calm conditions.

As we exited the inlet, we could barely see Aireze due to the heavy mist, almost foggy conditions.  We had decided that our best option for the day was to motor sail to Lake worth in order to avoid the anticipated storms due around 4pm-6pm

With Aireze still under sail, engines quiet, we motored towards them at around 6.5kts and soon were alongside. Bruce & Linda decided to get the horses going and we both motored Northwards.

The winds were really light until about an hour later when it was sufficient to unfurl our Genoa, we're moving away from Aireze so we slowed down by reducing the enging RPM. Aireze kept off our transom for a while but nearer to the shore. Being further off shore, we had the advantage of about 1/2 kt from the edge of the Northbound Gulf Stream. Soon Aireze was very close to shore.

We heard Lady Grey call for the HI bridge passage, the well rehearsed "Hillsboro Inlet Bridge, Hillsboro Inlet Bridge, Sailing catamaran Lady Grey requesting your next opening", all of us that regularly pass under the bridges on the ICW or past the Inlet Bridges are used to hearing that call, we're sailors, we do it right, don't get me started on how other boaters do it.

The trip up to the Lake Worth Inlet was really uneventful. Lady Grey has AIS like us, so we could track Barry & Jamie as they headed North in the Afternoon.

Once in the Lake Worth inlet, we followed the our previous tracks westward to the ICW then South towards the Flagler Memorial Bridge. Our Chartplotter provided us with current info on the bridge opening schedule. At this time it was only opening at 15mins past the hour, so we had to slow right down, even doing a few doughnuts to delay our arrival at the bridge for its 4:15 pm opening. Meanwhile, the anticipated storm was building to the West of the ICW and we could see the water being hidden by a thick white mist caused by the falling rain.

At this time, Aireze was south of the Inlet, Lady Grey further south, the storm was heading off shore, it never actually reached us but the wind did max out at 16kts off of our stern.

We got to our anchorage on the East side of the ICW. There were a few boats anchored over there, the current was flowing fast. I dropped our anchor and we eased the boat back in the currents with the wind on our stern. We have an anchor ball set on a 12' tether attached to the anchor, it disappeared under water. Duh! we were trying to anchor in 14' to 16'. That meant that the anchor was being pulled off of the bottom, we started to drag immediately, and the skipper of the power cat astern of us came out on deck and gave us 'the Look', he needn't have worried, we knew we had to move to a different spot.

I pulled in anchor in with the Man-ual windlass ( Me ) and added another 6' of line to the anchor ball tether. We anchored again, slightly further west and South of our first spot. We dug in and the anchor ball was floating, flowing north in the fast current.  It was weird, the anchor ball was off to our starboard side, we were pointing South. So the wind was trying to move us South and the Current trying to move us North. Weird but we were dug in.

Lady Gray & Aireze arrived at the Flagler Memorial Bridge and had to wait for the 6:15pm opening.  Once past, they headed South, Lady Gray was going to raft up on our Port Side and Aireze would raft on Barry's Port side and then we would dink Aireze's anchor ahead and to port of his catamaran's bow(s) This all went very well although Bruce did have to row the dink out to the anchor drop point, then Linda snugged up the anchor rode and we were good for the night.

Dinner onboard was shepherds pie ( Really Cottage pie as it was made with Beef ). After dinner the almost compulsory wine ( Peggy ) and Rum ( Paul ). We slept ok, running our AC on battery power for an hour before climbing into the V-Berth, all our fans running.

Saturday morning, Aireze and Lady Grey departed ( Long whistle - Vice Commodore Departing, followed by Long Whistle - Commodore Departing ) and they headed to tie up at the docks. Turns out the depth is enough for Eximius but we didn't want to deal with re-anchoring that evening.

So we set to on getting our dinghy in the water  - 'Special T' - get it? ask me if you don't. With Special T in the water we lowered our outboard on the stern and had it running in just a few minutes. That made our work on getting the outboard serviced over the past few weeks really worth it.

We took the dinghy for the short ride across the ICW to the Palm Beach city Docks, Aireze was tied to the North side of the dock and Lady Grey on the South side. The cockpit of Aireze was occupied by Bruce, Linda, Jamie, Barry, Denise, Amy and Gretchen when we arrived and we shortly headed out for lunch.

Ok, so it was a trek to the chosen restaurant and they had a 2 hour wait for a table for 9 - that's what they told us, it was a really upscale restaurant and perhaps we didn't look like the kinda folks they wanted in their hoity toity venue. So we all walked across the street to the Cheese Cake Factory - very nice, not too busy and a great selection of food - Tom Jockers arrived so now we were a party of 10.

If you look in the photos for this cruise, you'll us all sat at a well dressed table and enjoying the meal and lots of chat about everyone that didn't turn out.  All in good humor. ( But better not miss the club crusing events !! )

After lunch, some when home, some went shopping ( they have beautiful stuff up there. ) and some walked back with Bruce and Linda. We took an Uber back to the dock, I know, but it was about 4,000 steps from the dock to the Cheesecake Factory.

Of course, Barry had kindly put our life jackets in his Stbd side cabin, and locked the door! But he responded with the key code via text and we were soon on our way back to Eximius. Not even a 5 minute dinghy ride back to the boat and it was time for an afternoon nap. Sorry guys, but reality is it's hard work sailing a boat and sometimes we don't sleep to well on board, like this weekend.

The rest of the cruising team reached out to us, we were napping, called to see if we were going to join them at the dock then head out to Bradley's for dinner. Not our cup of Tea, so we declined and dinner on the boat and, yes, we had a drink or two.

The original plan was to have a Cruisers Mystery game onboard the 3 boats on Sunday Morning, but it seems that Aireze headed south overnight while Lady Grey anchored a couple of hundred yards NE of us at sunset. With the game postponed, we decided to pull to bring in the outboard and bring the dink up on the foredeck for the trip home. Seems we all had the same idea that the forecast was not so great for a trip South on Monday, and decided to head on Sunday instead. Good decision.

Sunday morning, after a light breakfast but with some strong coffee, we pulled anchor just after Lady Grey whom stopped by our port side to pass my sailing gloves that I had left on Aireze the day before. We arrived, Northbound for the Flagler bridge opening at 07:45 and pushed ahead towards the Lake Worth Inlet. Lady Grey passed the same bridge but then took a break, not sure why, but nothing big as they were heading North just after we exited the Inlet.

Our plan was to stay close to shore to keep out of the Gulf Stream, even just 3/4 of a mile off shore, we were still geting 1.4knts on the bow! With an estimated trip of 6 hours, that would mean we would have to sail an additional 8nm or about an extra 1.5 hours. We kept snugging towards shore but rarely did we see the current drop below 1kt. So we motor sailed on just the Genoa, we kept our speed through the water around 7kts, but less than 6kts GPS speed. Still we made good time. We did see Lady Grey head out to the East, I'm guessing they went for a dump.

We made it through the Hillsboro Inlet for the 13:45 bridge opening, Lady Grey was just a few feet astern of us. Once past the bridge, Lady Grey turned North and we turned South. It was a busy Sunday afternoon and that's always a challenge on the ICW, but nothing drastic. We tied up at our dock at 15:00.

Ready to get home, we only partially unloaded the boat into the truck and headed home. As soon as we pulled away, the storm hit, wipers on double speed.

Great trip even if we didn't actually sail ( without the motor running ) but good to get out on the boat and to meet up with club members at a distant shore ( ok, not really but as good as )

Start time: 09:00 Friday August 29th 2025

Return time: 15:00 Sunday August 31st 2025

Total Distance: 45nm

See you all next time ( Octoberfest ???? )

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