Sailing Lake Superior
A couple from Northern Virginia just bought a summer home in nearby Kilmarnock and took their friends sailing on the York River. Pat Tracey worked all over the world with the US Navy and retired as a lieutenant commander. “But I never got to captain a ship because I was the last of the women […]
Big Ship
A US Navy Support cargo ship pulled into Yorktown Naval Weapons Station and left just a few days later. USNS Medgar Evers is 689 feet long and has a crew of 123 civilians and 36 Navy personnel, some of whom deal with two helicopters on board. The cargo hold can take 783,000 cubic feet. It […]
Romantic Sail
A Richmond gal named Paula rented a stretch limo to take her boyfriend Christopher sailing as a surprise birthday gift. He got out of the limo and exclaimed, “Wow!” I took one look at the limo and said likewise. “My family has a house in Weems on the Corratoman River,” Chris said. “We have motorboats, […]
Ships Under the York
Underwater archeology is an important field that is poorly funded, according to John D. Broadwater, a world-renowned practioner who’s now pursuing his 11th ship under the York River. Broadwater once explored the Titanic and helped raise booster rockets from the Apollo space flights. His career has spanned 50 years, with much of it right here […]
Sailboat Swimming
Hot Days When guests go swimming in the York River, it’s on a hot day and the wind is flat. This is a great way to cool off in a expansive setting of genuine adventure. Typically, July and August are best for swimming. We simply stop the boat with a hove-to maneuver and then pull […]
Why Boats Sink
UPDATE – York River Yacht Haven moved quickly to remove the boat before any oil or fuel could leak into the water. Fellows at the marina yard think the bow went under in high winds and the bowrail got caught at low tide under a finger pier on G Dock. That drove the bow down […]
Sailing Annapolis
On an annual Christmas stopover before St. Michaels, we walked around the port of Annapolis to check out boats and boat names as if we were Sailing Annapolis. The imagination runs wild. Across from town, Eastport formed its own “island nation” and there is where many of these boats are berthed. They recently celebrated 150 […]
Among his troops
In July the Museum of the American Revolution released its first book, “Among His Troops: Discovering the Only Known Image of Washington’s Tent,” based on an exhibition of the same name. The book focuses on two of Pierre L’Enfant’s watercolors, one depicting the Continental Army at West Point and the other showing the army’s encampment at […]
Sailing into History
A young man from Prescott AZ (originally Baltimore) brought his wife to Williamsburg for an annual trip they’ve done for years. They wanted the History Cruise, so I dived deeply in the 1781 Battle of the Capes and the Siege of Yorktown that effectively ended the Revolutionary War. They had some history of their own. […]
Sub Exits York
Two couples and a solo sailor chased a Navy submarine for much of the afternoon. It was overcast and still, so we motored under the Coleman Bridge to the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station so they could see a sub in port. It was the third time this season that a sub arrived, which is very […]
