Annual Purple Martin Sail

[Doug SC]

Yesterday the weather turned cloudy with off and on misting rain. The temps dropped overnight from 98F the day before and the high 90s and 100F the week before. When we got to Lake Murray to sail it was cool, cloudy foggy with a light rain. it misted of and on that evening as we sailed.

Everyone met up yesterday evening at 5 with finger food to snack on before assigning folks to sailboats for a sail out to Bomb Island for our annual Purple Martin viewing. A Hawaiian lie was given to each of us to wear. That's what happens when the ladies take charge. A million Purple Martins were estimated to return this year to roost on the Island.

The Island got its name because it was used as a bomb target by the Dolittle Raiders during WW2 before they were to launch their B25s from an aircraft carrier in the Pacific to bomb Tokyo Japan. This was a daring one-way raid as they wouldn't have enough fuel to return to the carrier but would have to find landing spots or bail out over China. It's an amazing story. My Dad trained on B25 bombers before going into photo recon flying a P38 Lightening in the Pacific.

Bill and Annette, and Carol and I were to sail with Alex and Deborah on their 29-foot sailboat. Alex was a sailing instructor years ago on the Chesapeake Bay and has sailed to Bermuda and the Virgin Islands as well as the Atlantic coast of America. He often sails solo. I race as crew on Bill's Flying Scot every other Saturday. Alex let Bill take the Helm on a reach out from the club and then let me take the wheel on a wing and wing downwind run. I have only used a tiller to steer so wanted to treat the wheel the same way at first because of the ingrain muscle memory of steering with a tiller. this is of course wrong. I did get the hang of it quickly. However, I would sometimes revert back to steering like a tiller and have to quickly correct for the relapse. As we came to the Island which is about 4 miles as the purple martin flies. Alex took the helm.

We didn't see the dense cloud of purple martins in the air above the island thought there were numerous birds flying but think many of them might have been roosting in the trees due to the weather. Alex sailed us around the small island. We would be making long close-hauled tacks into the wind as it would be on our head back to the club. Speed over the water was 5.5 to 7 knots mostly in the mid 6 knot range. wind speeds were 10 knots plus with whitecaps. The boat would heel over on each tack and the sail back was a blast. As we sailed back, we started seeing a constant stream of purple matins heading toward the island coming back from their day's foray. I regret I didn't think to take some photos of the birds near the sails.

We got back to the club by 8:30 with smiles and damp cloths. We all agreed we should do this again and Alex said it was nice to have crew on board for a change.

Deborah steering into the wind as Alex sets the main and genoa.
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Bill takes the helm on a broad reach.
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one of the other two boats that joined us.
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Purple martins over the island. Given the conditions a difficult shot to focus.
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Tacking into the wind on the way back.
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[Doug SC]

A few more photos taken by Peter and Antoinette. They anchored by the island and motored back after dark.

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[Doug SC]

one of purple martins in the rigging.

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[Timm R Oday25]

Thanks for bringing us along. Try as I might ,I can't figure out the mainsheet design.
Was it a double ended unit ? Does it also act like a vang ?

[Doug SC]

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Ok looking at this photo I think I have how the sheet is run through the blocks. It starts from an attachment point on the left of the cabin roof. You can see it come into the photo on the left and going to the bottom pully of the block on the boom. It then travels down to the double block on the traveler. it then goes back up and back out of the photo on the left to a block (not in the photo) in the middle of the boom. It then returns to the double block on the traveler. Where it is directed up to the top pully of the block visible on the boom. After which it angles down to a block on the right side of the cabin top which leads it back to the winch near the cockpit and down to a cam cleat.

He doesn't have a Vang or Cunningham, But I can see how it might act somewhat like a vang to keep the boom from rising without requiring an adjustment to a vang.

[Riley Smith]

Man, that looks like great fun. And I'd love to see the birds! Tell the ladies they did good, the leis look great.