I have done the trip from Connecticut in the sound out Montauk point to Atlantic city to little creek. the cross currents outside Delaware Bay are an issue I was in a 31 foot boat with ten foot seas at night
A more detailed summary of the trip:
This was a big deal for my son and I. It was a new boat to us, in unfamiliar waters, in unfamiliar conditions where I have not done night sailing. The rout required night sailing along the coast of New Jersey because I didn't want to stop along the coast and take any risks at those inlets.
Before we left I changed the alternator belt, fuel filter, oil filter and raw water impeller and ran the engine hard for a day just to give myself some comfort that we wouldn't have engine trouble. We left two days after we arrived at the boat in Portsmouth RI to get it ready to go south.
I bought a three month subscription to PredictWind and an updated Navionics CF card for the C-80 chart plotter. Also, the Navionics iPad app is cheap and fantastic. We had quite a few problems with the C-80 chart plotter crashing and the iPad saved us more than once. We also had backup charts both on cell phones and paper charts as well. For the night sail we both stayed in the cockpit and took three hour shifts.
We had a bit of a regimen where every three hours we checked and wrote down:
whether
GPS coordinates
condition of the bilge
checked the rigging
check the state of the batteries
Each day we checked:
engine oil
engine coolant
transmission oil
raw water strainers
For safety we:
purchased an EPIRB
rented a six person life raft in a satchel from Vane Bros.
installed jack lines
required each of us be clipped in our harness AT ALL TIMES outside of the cabin until we got into the Chesapeake Bay.
emailed or texted our float plan and progress each day to someone at home.
We watched the wind conditions using PredictWind and monitored the tidal current forecasts using the Navionics iPad app which showed precisely when the currents were favorable in and out of New York and in and out of Delaware Bay. We timed our trip to go through some of the tough areas such as "The Race" entering Long Island sound and "Hell Gate" entering New York City at slack tide with a following push and it worked perfectly every time.. We also used the app to predict the incoming tide up Delaware Bay and were able to ride it in and do 8 knots all the way up the bay in 15+ knots of wind and it was perfect.
The toughest part of the trip was getting down to Cape May New Jersey. We had run all day from Port Jefferson Long Island through the City down to Sandy Hook New Jersey and was going to spend the night there;......... however the wind forecast called for steady 30 kn winds the following afternoon and for the next three days. So rather than getting pinned down in Sandy Hook for three days we decided to continue on and leave immediately for Cape May at 8 PM in 20 kn southerly winds trying to get south before the high winds kicked up the following day. That turned out to be a long 36 hour run from Port Jefferson Long Island to Cape May nonstop except for a quick stop at Sandy Hook. We didn't quite get to Cape May before the winds picked up and spent the last three hours in 30 kn winds on the nose in fairly steep waves but we got there just fine.
We had left Sandy Hook with two reefs in the main and no jib and kept the the engine running all night just to be prepared for anything. We generally stayed 3 to 5 miles off the shoreline and tacked down the coast all night in southerly winds and could see the lights along the shore the entire way. Fortunately a nearly full moon rose at midnight which help light the way. I wouldn't want to do this in a storm or fog or complete darkness.
The boat does not have AIS which my other boat did. This is a first priority upgrade because it lets you see so much more than just radar does. IMHO.
We left Cape May the following morning in the same 25+ knots of wind and rough seas but it was only an hour and half to get around the Cape and into Delaware Bay where conditions turned out to be perfect.
The second day down the Chesapeake we were able to run with the spinnaker all day. That was great.
When we couldn't sail we motored or motor sailed. We planned on about 60+ nautical miles a day but some days did 90+ and some days did less.
This time of year it starts to get light at 4:30 AM so we left at 5 AM and no later than 6 AM most days.
Active Captain (get an account if you don't have one) syncs with the Navionics app (both owned by Garmen) so you can find all kinds of anchorages with comments from other sailors and cruisers as well as information such as phone numbers and details about anything along the route including dangerous locations. The Active Captain Internet site is also really good.
You want to anchor as close to shore as you can but not too close. The closer to shore you get the more likely you are to be attacked by gnats, or worse, mosquitoes.
The Navionics IPad app will also do automatic route calculations and keep track of your speed and give you an estimated time of arrival for each leg of your trip as long as you have an Internet connection. This helped us determine at what point along the trip to stop, usually 30 minutes before sunset. My iPad has built-in cell service so we had cell service along the entire trip.
We had no delays to speak of. The wind, sunrise and tidal currents controlled our schedule.
We did begin to make a list of issues with the boat as we worked our way south. These include:
1. The C-80 chart plotter is a bit sketchy. I have already decided to upgrade it.
2. The main halyard line clutch slips and wouldn't hold the main halyard tension tight enough so under certain conditions we had to rig the main sheet to another winch. This was a pain but we were able to work around it. I have since rebuilt the line clutch with new Spinlok parts.
3. The stereo stopped working on day one. turned out to be an inline fuse.
4. A number of the Bomar deck hatches leaked badly in rough weather.
5. The single-line reefing system is poorly designed. I should've known this because my other boat had the same system and there's so much friction in it that it makes reefing almost impossible at times. I'm adding a number of blocks and replacing the running rigging to eliminate a lot of the friction in the system to fix this.
God bless.