SV Ulladh (ul-la): September 2010

Monday, September 20, 2010

Essington to Chesapeake City September 2010

September 17 through 19

Depart Essington 9:30 AM Friday 17, single hand, with breeze building 10 to 15 gusts to 20 out of the northwest.
2nd reef main sail with the ebb tide to Reedy Point at 2:00PM.
25nm starboard tack all the way, top speed 6.5knots, average SOG 5.5knots.

Enter Chesapeake and Delaware Canal to early for flood in the canal and motor against the tide at 2 to 3 knots until Summit and get assistance from the flood tide speeds up to 5 knots.
Arrive Chesapeake City after 6:00 PM and secure to the town dock. Rick saved a space for me on the town dock.
Meet up with Rick and Lori on "SV Take Five" who had been about 1/2 nm behind me most of the way, but with a stronger motor was through the canal in half my time, Wayne and Sally on "SV Virgina Dare" and Jack on SV Dionysus sister ship to Virginia Dare.

Saturday strolling around Chesapeake City and meet up with other sailors.

Depart Chesapeake City 6:00 AM on the ebb tide through the canal and stop at Delaware City just up river from the Delaware entrance at 8:30 AM for fuel, antisipating a hard motor against an ebb tide to Essington.
Talk with folks at the Delaware City Marina and depart at 9:30 AM, round Pea Patch Island and into the main channel by 10:00 AM.

Motor up river at 5 knot until the Delaware Memorial Bridge at Wilmington then a harder push against the tide and no assist from still air. Speed over ground (SOG) drops to 3 knot then to 2.5 knot at Marcus Hook and chop builds. Short period disorded chop 2 foot crest and 6 foot period persists all the way to Darby Creek, but a breeze starts to build of the NJ side and I get some assist on the 2nd reef main that I had previously set to dampen the normal 2 foot 40 foot period swell and 6 foot barge wake.

Arrive at Essington 4:00 PM Sunday 18, average SOG 4 knot.

Commadore Barry Bridge with tug Tow

Delaware Memorial Bridge

1st bridge at C&D entrance

One of many barges on the C&D

Railway lift bridge at Summit

Arrive Chesapeake City Bridge at sunset

Chesapeake City Town Dock

Chesapeake City

Chesapeake City Anchorage Basin (Engineers Cove)

Chesapeake City from the Bridge

Sunrise on the C&D, Chesapeake City departure

Delaware City on the old C&D

Leaving Delaware City, view downriver to the Salem cooling tower

Fort Delaware on Pea Patch Island

Catamaran sailor (shipping pallet, 2 hulls)

Off cherry Island Flats approaching Marcus Hook in opposing current

Ulladh

Ulladh pronounced "ul-la" (null lad).

Uladh the gaelic spelling for the territory of the U-Nail chieftains in the ancient Irish province of Ulster (English/Norse), originally the counties of Down and Antrim, but now including Derry, Armagh, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, also referred to as Ulidia (Greek/Roman),.

Uladh was the home of a pre-celtic, cruithne (crew-en-ya) pictish tribe, who may have been descendants of prehistoric tribes indigenous to the British Isles since the retreat of the last ice age.

Evidence from cut marks on deer bones from more than 30,000 years ago found in the karst formations of the Burren probably from hunters suggest a homonid precence. Archeological finds date first inhabitants (DNA evidence suggests dark or black skin and blue eyes) to about 6,000 BC and trade goods from Rathlin Island, County Antrim off the northeast coast of Ireland made from porcellanite stone appearing in Egypt and Crete by 2,500 BC.

The early tribes of Ireland where displaced by later waves of migrants from mainland Europe; about 1700 BC by bronze age tribes, celtic tribes about 500 BC, and in the past two millenia; Roman trading posts, Viking settlements, English plantations... and in the 21st century a welcome increasing diversity from the European Union and the world.

SV Ulladh (for vhf clarity I use "sailing vessel ul-la") is named for the territory of the first peoples to settle in Ireland after the retreat of the last ice age.

Fisksatra

Since 1949 Fisksatra Varv in the coastal town of Fisksatra Sweden, built fiberglass boats from dinghies to a 300 ton minesweeper for the Swedish Navy.

The Havsfidra 20's were built between 1968 and the late 1970's to Swedish Navy and Lloyd's certification standards.

The Havsfidra 20 and a larger version the Storfidra 26 where sold in the United States by Continental Yachts and Trawler Agency of Atlantic City NJ.

Havsfidra; sea-feather?
(fidra; to touch or tickle with a feather -Icelandic-English Dictionary, Clarendon Press 1874)