Ocean Research Project – learning to sail on the Chesapeake Bay and the ICW

Long before he founded Ocean Research Project, Captain Matt Rutherford taught himself to sail by trial and error. He bought a cheap sailboat, crossed the Chesapeake Bay and headed south down the Intra-Coastal Waterway, running aground, bumping into pilings and making a mess of docking as he went. But, as he readily points out, mistakes are all part of the process, and the ICW is a relatively sheltered place in which to make them. Plus, it’s a great place to learn about navigation and treacherous currents too. He makes the return journey on the open ocean, where he gets seasick for the first and only time and has an unusual encounter with a pair of French Canadian sailors, two hundred miles offshore.