Now that the rainy portion of Tropical Storm Nicole has moved north of Baltimore – we are left with her gale force tailwinds. Strangely I was game for a sail to Annapolis.

We waited til noon – giving me ONE LAST EXERCISE OP and the gale winds a chance to subside based on professional weather forecasters. If you ask me, the winds got stronger after noon – but hey, who’s askin’? We finished provisioning for a trip of unknown length, and only one known destination. Where the wind is blowing. The wind is blowing from the north – so it should be a fast sail – to where-ever we decide to stop.

Left the A Dock at Anchorage Marina around noon…and we are quickly blown out past Ft. McHenry. “Maybe we should double reef the main?” I suggested to Paddy? Captain Paddy positioned Cat Maudy upwind and had plenty of work to do to hold her in place, while I attempted to raise the main to a double reef point. Once in place, all 3 of the reef lines need to be tightened.

I tried using my strength. No luck in tightening these lines. I tried the power tool….it sounded like the rigging would break. I spoke with salt. No avail. The reef lines are jammed up – and in these heavy wind conditions…there was no fixin her.

We had only one choice…to return back to base camp. The problem now, is that our A-DOCK landing (perpendicular to the winds) would be very tough to land a wide-ass catamaran. So, we made an emergency landing on the Anchorage P-DOCK. From a dock point of view, we traveled about 500 feet today.

And the reef lines? They were just tangled.  For today, Tropical Storm Nicole wins. Cat Maudy will depart dockage tomorrow.