Krogens Cruise The Rappahannock
77° 40'
77° 20'
38° 20'
•
Fredericksburg
77°
Port Royal•
Leedstown
•
•
Otterburn Marsh
76° 40'
38°
NEW
JERSEY
Anchorage
MARYLAND
Baltimore •
Annapolis
•
WASHINGTON D. C.•
Delaware
Bay
Potomac River
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DELAWARE
Tappahannock Bridge
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Nautical miles
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Urbanna •
76° 20'
Chesapeake
Bay
37° 40'
Fredericksbu•rg
Stingray Point
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Area of Detail
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Illustration by Paul Mirto
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Piankatank River
Richmond• York River
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VIRGINIA
James River
Deltaville •
Chesapeake
Bay
Piankatank River
Atlantic
Ocean
• Norfolk
Capt. Smith’s party explored the Rappahannock
during the hottest part of the summer. Presumably,
they adjusted their schedule to exploit the considerable
currents and likely bent their backs to the oars when the
winds died. On our cruise, we had the opposite problem:
May’s progression of cold fronts tripping over each other
to deliver fierce north and west winds. Smith, always
pressing his search for the elusive Northwest Passage
to the Orient, was driven to probe the full length of the
Rappahannock, upwards of 150 miles to the fall line. It’s
all still navigable, with bridge clearances of at least 50
feet all the way to Fredericksburg. We were a bit less
ambitious, though still intent on reaching the sites of
some of Smith’s most dramatic exploits, which, as it
happened, also took us to some of today’s most
appealing attractions.
PARALLELS?
We convinced ourselves that there were all kinds of
parallels between Smith’s voyage and ours. For example,
as it happened, we had roughly the same number of
crew members: 14. The difference was that whereas
Smith’s entourage was crowded into a single open
vessel and slept exposed to the elements, the stars, and
intermittent volleys of arrows, we spent our nights
on comfy mattresses in snug cabins and were divided
among six roomy Krogen trawlers: the 39-foot Sweet
Time; Honga and Transition, both 42s; Cup of Tea, a 48-
foot North Sea; the 48 Whaleback Allegria; and Solveig
IV, the nominal leader, a 58-foot Krogen belonging to
my wife, Barbara, and me.
Smith was venturing into the unknown and, by
modern standards, so were we. We’d all sailed and
cruised the Chesapeake for years, but the most any of
us really knew about the Rappahannock is that you’ll
get bounced around if you cross its mouth in a strong
westerly or northwest wind on your way to somewhere
else. Most of us had visited Deltaville, Virginia, before,
given its convenience as a stop for snowbirds on their
way south, but we were curiously innocent of the
other accessible attractions of the lower river: the
well-known Tides Inn and Marina on Carter Creek,
the many sheltered anchorages up the Corrotoman
River, and the attractive and historic community of
Urbanna on the south shore some 10 miles up. So,
if you don’t count our access to GPS, electronic and
paper charts, and well-placed channel markers, this
was virgin territory for us, too. Indeed, we chose it in
