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Larry's LogWe started at about 10:30AM EDT from Stamford Connecticut. The crew consisted of my wife, Diane, 4 others with various amounts of experience, and myself. I had done the return trip from Bermuda several years before on a friend's boat coming back after the Marion-Bermuda race. But that was in June, in relatively benign conditions. This was the beginning of November, after a strong low had just passed off Cape Cod, swinging toward Nova Scotia and predicted to come back southwest again before finally heading east, like it was supposed to. We got a late start that day because 2 of the crew were having a hard time changing their plane reservations. They argued with the airline on the car phone for about an hour while we waited on the boat. We all had to change our return plane reservations since we had originally planned to depart about a week earlier. I had gotten a call at the time from the weather service saying it was a go, but then this low started its progression up the coast, causing havoc in the Gulfstream, so we canceled. And then waited. We finally got a sliver of a window and although not ideal, we decided to go for it. My wife and I felt we couldn't really wait any more (a second front was expected to come off the East Coast later in the week and we wanted to beat that front to Bermuda.) I still don't think leaving at that time was a mistake. We did beat the second to Bermuda, avoiding another bout with gale force winds. After calling a "go", we called the 3 crew who were waiting. The last crew member had flown in from British Columbia about 10 days before, and had been staying with us. Together, we made final preparations. The fuel and water tanks were topped off, jerry jugs filled and lashed, fresh food purchased and stored. The day came. The tide at Hell Gate was slack at 1:20PM, and was going to ebb after that, so timing was important to make the most of the current. And although we left later than I had wanted, we made it through Hell Gate easily and caught a great boost from the 2 knot current down the East River. The wind was from the north to north west at about 20 - 25 knots, but the island protected us the majority of the time. We had motored most the day although we used the jib while we were on the Long Island Sound. 
It was a beautiful, clear, windy day in New York. Everyone snapped pictures as we passed the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center (where I work) and then the Grand Lady, the Statue of Liberty. As we approached Sandy Hook, the spit of land that denotes the entrance to New York Harbor, I was busy double-checking our course to the first waypoint, basically SSE. This was so we could enter the Gulfstream at a favorable spot where it was only about 30-35 miles wide.The crew was made up of myself, a sailor for almost 30 years, with mostly local cruising experience, my wife who had taken up sailing only after she met me, and a good friend Tony (and boat owner) with about the same experience as myself. We also had 2 people we met through a crew-boat "matching" service, Barry and Brad, and another who was a friend of Barry's, Peter. Both Barry and Peter owned boats but sailed primarily on the Hudson River, and Brad was a fishing guide in the Pacific Northwest, who had extensive on-the-water time, if not direct sailboat experience. |