Island Packet 465 • The boat’s distinctive beige hull with the short bowsprit was heeled over at about 10 degrees as it reached comfortably and steadily before the clearing northwest breeze. In the background some 10 miles distant lay the sandy shores of Virginia Beach. Astern was the mouth of Chesapeake Bay and ahead, on the boat’s course lay the Caribbean Sea some 1,200 miles away.
Any sailor would know it was a cruising boat. It had a high cut Yankee headsail, a lower cut self-tending staysail and a fully battened mainsail. A dinghy was strapped down on deck. A radar dome was mounted on the mast above the spreaders and a long whip antenna for the high seas radio stood on the transom right next to the vertical blade of the boat’s wind vane self-steering unit.
The cockpit was protected with a blue dodger,