The Backstory: As you may have heard, the Atlantic 57, LEOPARD, in 2016 was capsized at night by a tornado on her way to the Caribbean. The crew was picked up that same night without any significant injuries but Leopard was “lost” for 6 months floating about the Atlantic. Eventually she floated past Cape Lookout, NC and was salvaged. I acquired her at auction and set about the slow process of rebuilding this great boat. The covid pandemic actually helped the re-hab process since for months I could not go anywhere or do anything other than spend days, nights and weekends working on Leopard.
In September and October 2021 I was working madly on Leopard (the salvaged A57) doing a long overdue bottom job and then assembling the new mast and rigging to replace the mast that was lost in her accident. By mid October Leopard was once again a sailboat! Even though there was still much to do, Kate and I decided that it would be fun to do a shake down cruise south with the intention of getting all the way to the Bahamas provided we didn't run into major unforeseen boat problems.
The weather at home during the last of October and first weeks of November was horrid, including at least one 70 knot blow that had me thinking Leopard was going to tear my dock apart. It wasn't until the 17th of November that the wind settled down and we actually had ourselves and the boat packed up to leave.
We need a high tide and daylight to get out of the Slocum River. During the short days of November there are periods where both high tides are in the dark! Fortunately, the first high tide on the 17th was at dawn so we slept onboard in order to get an early start. That seemed like a good idea until it was time to get out of bed and it was 20 degrees! The frost on deck and the dock was so thick and slippery that I was on hands and knees undoing the frozen dock lines.
Anyway, we got out over the various sandbars into deeper water and began to initialize the new autopilot. Astonishingly there was only one loose part that needed fixing and the pilot seemed to be working properly. So off we went, westward toward Long Island Sound. Given all the necessary tuning, Leopard hadn't yet been sailed with her new rig, we intended to take it slow, stopping along the way to sort out various gremlins as well as enjoy a fall cruise.
The wind was nil until a light afternoon sea-breeze came up. That was enough wind to have me snugging up the leeward turnbuckles and looking at the mast to be sure it was staying in column. New rigging wire stretches so it takes awhile to get the rig snugged up to where it should be.
We stopped after dark at Port Jefferson on the north shore of Long Island. The next day was warmer and sunny, we had the current with us in the Sound and hit Hell Gate at more or less the perfect time (only by accident) to carry the current all the way down the East River, past the Statue of Liberty and under the Verrazano bridge.
Sailing through NYC on a beautiful sunny day is always quite a thrill. You get so many incredible views from the boat and since you're not going all that fast, plenty of time to take it all in.
We stopped late afternoon in Great Kills on the south side of Staten Island which is well protected and convenient. I went up the mast to tighten the diamonds which needed attention. A cold front was forecast to pass that night so we could look forward to a quick romp down the Jersey shore in the morning.
As usual, at 0300 the front rolled through although it was a non event at anchor. Leaving on the early side we had a slow dead run out of Raritan Bay then were able to come up on a close reach as we rounded Sandy Hook. WOW! All of a sudden were blasting along at 15-16-18-19 knots! Keep in mind the rig had never been loaded up and tuning was still far from complete, but hey everything seemed to be hanging together well enough so let's enjoy.
The November days are short and sunset was close as we neared Cape May. The wind had been slowly backing off from the 25-30 we had seen earlier and the forecast was for more moderate conditions that night so we elected to keep going. As is often the case, the wind funnels out of the Delaware Bay and combines with tidal currents to create some nasty confused waves. There were a couple of rather unpleasant hours with gusts 30 to 35 kts and small breaking waves throwing spray right over the top of Leopard. It was during that time that I realized the second hand house batteries I was using were not up to the job. The voltage would get very low, the autopilot would struggle and I'd need to start an engine to bring the voltage up. Hey, it was a shakedown cruise in a salvage boat- what could possibly go wrong?
New batteries became the mission at hand. So we detoured into the Chesapeake Bay, our old stomping grounds, and head right for the East River, off Mobjack Bay, where I knew I could get help from Zimmerman Marine.
Kate and I built our trimaran, Juniper, near there in 1979/80 and used the area as a home base for several years afterward. Around that time Steve Zimmerman had acquired a small boatyard and was proceeding to build his, now well known, multi location full service boatyards. The Cardinal, VA yard where we stopped, has recently added hauling capability for large multihulls which was badly needed in the region. Consequently the yard is now full of catamarans!
The boatyard maintains a loaner SUV which any customer can sign out to run errands. This is exactly what we needed so onward we drove to the industrial bowels of Norfolk to pick up half a ton of batteries!
Yard manager, Steve Wallace, couldn't have been more helpful. Those batteries are very heavy, old ones out-new ones in, two strapping big guys from Zimmerman made really short work of the switch! My back is forever grateful.
While anchored in the beautiful East River off Zimmerman Marine we had one other mission. Take the dinghy up river to visit our old friends, and my early trimaran mentor, Jim and Joanna Brown. Jim must be just about 90 but you wouldn't know it. Other than his failing eyesight he's still a kid at heart, in love with boats and his wife. Still conjuring up new and sometimes outlandish boat designs and then building them in the shop adjacent to their house.
Joanna fixed us a huge lunch and as an added bonus we got to meet Ryan Finn. Ryan was prepping his 36' Proa, designed and built by Russell Brown, for an epic journey from New York, around Cape Horn to San Francisco. Yikes! was my first reaction. His boat was hauled out at Brown's for some repairs and other modifications for the planned trip. As pro's go this is a very advanced, 4th or 5th generation design by Russell. Still, it is not much more than a 2,000 pound plywood kayak with a mast and a little outrigger. Cape Horn? Really? Ryan is young, fit and motivated plus he's got tons of sea miles. Good-on-ya, as the say in New Zealand!
This lunch was in late November. Six weeks later Ryan sailed to NYC in January and waited for a weather window to start. What evolved was one of the all time great sailing adventures. He made it all the way to San Francisco in nearly record time. That little boat is an absolute rocket! And Ryan deserves heaps of recognition and praise for doing what he set out to do. It was an amazing accomplishment.
Once again with frost on the decks (in the southern Chesapeake?) we left to sail around Cape Hatteras. The wind was light so there was considerable motoring mixed in with the sailing. Another round of strong SW wind was forecast so we ducked in to Beaufort, NC. Once south of Hatteras it was finally warming up. Not quite warm, but enough to shed a layer or two. That at least felt like progress. Kate did a very credible job making Thanksgiving dinner substituting two small Cornish Game Hens with all the right trimmings PLUS a pumpkin pie!
While anchored near town, there were a couple of boat gremlins to deal with. There was no hot water. I traced that to a faulty mixing valve on the hot water tank and managed to find a hardware store with the parts to bypass the bad valve and get hot water to the showers and galley. Without the mixing valve it was plenty hot.
Also the lower shroud turnbuckles had bottomed out. They have Staloc terminals so it was an easy matter to cut off a little wire and re-attach the turnbuckle. A simple project at anchor.
The next cold front passed and we had some great beam reaching down the coast but the wind faded away near Cape Fear. The wind didn't come back for days. We motored, tried to sail now and then but basically burned diesel until we stopped in Georgia. I had a work related mission at a boatyard near Savannah and Kate was keen to make a visit to Cumberland Island so we stayed inshore.
Cumberland Island is very pretty and we had a few nice walks through the spectacular live oak forest. Picked some oysters off one of the many large oyster reefs along the marshy rivers then stopped for fuel and a shrimp dinner in Fernandina, FL while wishing for wind to sail down the Florida coast. Instead of wind we got- more calm and FOG. Regular New England-in-June pea soup fog. In Florida? What gives?
Heading south was pretty dull, very little wind mixed with zero wind. The only excitement came as we were approaching Cape Canaveral. I was on watch, it was 0230 and some radio chatter on VHF16 that I hadn't been paying much attention to suggested there was something going on. I called USCG to ask what was up and they said there was a restricted area due to a rocket launch. Hmmm. I looked at the restricted boundary coordinates and saw we were only 6 miles away and motoring toward it. The launch was about an hour away so I slowed down a little and woke Kate up to watch the show. Of course there was a delay so we watched a military helicopter scold a couple yachts ahead of us that had crossed the boundary. We were still outside the boundary area but you could plainly see the rocket on the launch pad. We connected with the NASA channel on the iPad so we had the full count down. The launch was pretty cool and a great way to liven up a very dull night.
Eventually the wind started to fill in from the east and we had some good sailing, making a pit stop at W. Palm. In the morning, pea soup fog- again. In West Palm Beach!
We had sailed all this way with a old mainsail borrowed from an Atlantic 48 owner. That sail was basically a perfect match for an A57 mainsail with one reef. It was easy to install and enabled us to get out of New England, I don't know what we would have done without it. There was a new mainsail in the works which had been promised for October delivery but still wasn't anywhere near ready to ship. So our plan was to leave Leopard in Florida until the new sail arrived then move over to the Bahamas. A friend in Pompano Beach loaned me his dock for a month and we wrapped up our first voyage in the re-built Leopard.
Part Two Late in January Leopard's new mainsail arrived at Calvert Sails in Florida. I was on a plane the next day to get the sail and prep Leopard for a transit over to the Bahamas. It was still cold in south Florida, so much so that I had to get the heater going again- I thought we were done with that and had stowed it away. And quite windy too, which delayed swapping the mainsail until we had some calmer days.
Our friends in Florida graciously lent us a car so we could make multiple grocery runs, as well as getting the Bahamas required covid tests. Beer, booze and food, in that order, started filling the lockers. Food is available in the Bahamas of course but it is lots more expensive and selection is more limited so it is beneficial to be well stocked with essentials before leaving.
The new mainsail looked great and we departed the inlet at Ft. Lauderdale in the afternoon with a light, but favorable SSE wind. It was calm in the Gulf Stream so it was an easy night sailing in light wind to the north end of the Berry Islands. We cleared customs at Great Harbor, presenting our negative covid tests, and then moved out to anchor for a couple days so we could return to the same place for our mandatory covid re-test 2 days later. That done we shifted south to a couple anchorages in the cays where we could enjoy some clear water and Bahamian solitude.
Penmanship was further south in the Exumas and I was very keen to get aboard to do some sailing before they took off for the Caribbean. Leopard had to keep moving. At least now we had steady breeze, predominately out of the east, providing a close reach from the Berry's, past Nassau and down the lee side of the Exumas where we joined up with Penmanship in Staniel Cay.
Things can get rather busy on Penmanship with the full compliment of six active kids! Fortunately there is plenty of room for everyone to spread out and great facilities to enable all the cooking that needs to be done.
For a variety of reasons there was need to sail to George Town, Great Exuma so we departed with Penmanship in a fresh southerly breeze which enabled me to get some nice sailing photos of the A72.
George Town is a place we have used as a cruising base going back 30 years. It is a magnificent harbor, it's huge, with lovely beaches, good holding ground, supplies readily available and an airport with frequent flights to the USA. We are not the only ones to appreciate those features. The harbor when we arrived was busier than ever. Several hundred boats, nearly half of them catamarans, anchored up and down the windward side of Elizabeth Harbor. After the initial shock wore off we managed to find a nice hole tucked up close to the beach at the south end of Stocking Island. There was yet another cold front on the way so I like to get close to the beach so as not to have any yokels anchored upwind.
The Bahamas seemed particularly windy this past winter. Cold fronts always come through but some years are more active than others. After passage of the front the wind seemed to hang in the NE for longer and with more velocity. There were quite a few nights where the wind roared in Leopard's rigging and the boat, despite being tucked right in close to the beach did her share of shake, rattle and roll.
The upside was that more boats stuck to the harbor for longer, including the seven Atlantic cats in the area. We had numerous happy hours and some sailing on various CW designs. Including Leopard there was: A57 “Agility”, an A55 “Emotional Rescue” and of course the A72 “Penmanship”. Also in the mix was the A42 “Southern Cross”, A47MastFoil “Valianna” and later on another mastfoil, the A49 “WabiSabi”.
One of the beauties of George Town is that there is nice cruising in every direction. You just look at the weather forecast and decide which way you want to go. Once the wind settled down the Atlantic Cat party disbanded each to a different area. Leopard set off eastward to Long Island where we hoped to cross paths with the Hammerhead 54 trimaran, “Flying Fish”, that owner/builder Charlie Pingree was sailing north from the Caribbean. We did indeed cross paths and spent several nice days cruising together.
Meeting the owners of my designs when they are actually out cruising is incredibly valuable. I hear about what they like and don't like, what works and what doesn't. Information that is fresh and unadulterated. I can also easily see how heavily the boat is loaded by the transom immersion. The design weight of a boat is one thing, its actual weight in use is a different story. And if I am aboard my own boat I can watch how the other designs move when sailing in the ocean. Believe it or not this is not a particularly easy for a yacht designer to do without a capable boat of your own to follow along side.
While on that subject, you'd be amazed at how few yacht designers actually own a boat or even get a chance to extensively sail their designs. For a cruising boat that will be used not only to travel long distances but also spend a lot of time at anchor it is really critical that people responsible for the design and construction have that first hand experience.
By April the cold fronts were mostly a thing of the past and the water noticeably warmer for swimming. Some good friends flew down to join us for a week of sailing and we had a great time showing them the clear waters and beautiful beaches of Conception Island and Rum Cay. Even caught a mahi-mahi which we grilled to near perfection.
Toward the end of April we parked Leopard for a month in a marina while we took care of things at home, then returned in June to sail north. Leopard is now back on the dock where we started from. Who knows where she goes next?