Sailboat delivery done right!

[Scott T-Bird]

Isn't that the boat the previous owner paneled the cabin interior with teak ? I think I remember photos on the owners association.

I'm not sure how much teak he added to the original layout. He added teak battens to the ceiling to make the ceiling look nautical. The surveyor laughed a little bit about the effort, but I have to admit that I really appreciate it. I think it looks really good! I might have a photo or 2 that shows the ceiling and I'll try to add later.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

Thanks, Scott. Very cool voyage. Just curious, did you guys have a current Eldridge on hand, and if not, what did you use for current predictions? Also, what did you use for pilot info, like bridge heights, etc.?

I did purchase Eldridge and used it for all the planning so we knew what to expect. Otherwise, we had Navionics, which provided current information. I have a Garmin chart plotter at the helm and between the cp and Navionics on phone and tablet, we had all the info that we needed. The only bridges we passed under were through NYC and I knew that all on our route had plenty of clearance, so bridges were not an issue.

We only had a couple of close encounters with the huge freighters that we saw. The first, we gave plenty of room to him before we passed under the Throgs Neck Bridge. The other freighter was on a very odd channel that aims right at the end of Sandy Hook, where there is an elbow that takes it out to sea. We were watching it for quite a while, wondering why it was on such an odd course, until I recognized the channel outline on the chart. When they are so large, they don't really look like they are moving, they just seem to grow larger. For a long time, I figured that we were going to cross the channel in front of it with plenty of time. However, at one point, I figured I may as well speed up just to make it a more comfortable crossing. That is, until I realized … "Damn, that thing is closing on us a lot faster than I thought!". Just before reaching the edge of the channel, I cut the throttle and turned sharply to starboard and told @Ward H "Let's just wait this one out". I think he made a big sigh of relief! That's when we realized that a patrol boat that lurks around the Earle Naval Weapons Station came out to give the freighter an escort out to sea. There was also a small boat anchored next to the channel (fishing). They might have figured there could be a little too much activity in that tight squeeze of a channel. We didn't hear any radio chatter (other than the freighter thanking the patrol boat for the escort), but I wasn't really paying attention to the radio as I made the last minute decision to turn away. I think we would have cleared, but at the last minute it seemed silly to even think about it!

 

[Bob S]

Jviss, Interesting you bring up Eldridge Tides & Current. I have bought mine for the last 13 years but didn't this year. This season I've been consulting my Navionics App, Garmin CP and Tides Near Me App and it's been working out pretty well. Woods Hole is the only area that is of concern in my cruising grounds but timed right what a difference. We were doing better than 10 knots in Nantucket Sound with a 2 knot current in our favor last Thursday heading to Edgartown. Your thoughts?

 

[JRT]

Looks real sharp and loved!

 

[jviss]

Jviss, Interesting you bring up Eldridge Tides & Current. I have bought mine for the last 13 years but didn't this year. This season I've been consulting my Navionics App, Garmin CP and Tides Near Me App and it's been working out pretty well. Woods Hole is the only area that is of concern in my cruising grounds but timed right what a difference. We were doing better than 10 knots in Nantucket Sound with a 2 knot current in our favor last Thursday heading to Edgartown. Your thoughts?

We sail out of Westport, MA, and rely on the Eldridge. I sometimes find the predictions a little off, but it provides an excellent big picture of what's going on.

I was in Edgartown last Thursday. I had sailed from Westport to Tarpaulin Cove Sunday, and ended up staying there an extra day due to the thunderstorms. We motored against the current Tuesday, so it took forever to get to Edgartown. However, sailing home Thursday on a fair tide we made record time, 5 hours or so, back to Westport. Quicks' Hole with wind against tide was a bear, otherwise it was fine.

 

[Ward H]

I did purchase Eldridge and used it for all the planning so we knew what to expect. Otherwise, we had Navionics, which provided current information. I have a Garmin chart plotter at the helm and between the cp and Navionics on phone and tablet, we had all the info that we needed.

And while @Scott T-Bird was using Eldridge, CP and Navioncs moble he also had a very nice set of laminated paper charts he would study the night before to get the bigger picture and share the routes with me.

Along with that I was using Navionics “Auto Routing” Feature on an iPad to create a route for the next day, then edited the routes as needed after zooming in and noting slightly better routing. (Auto Routing seems to favor power boats) The Auto Routing was good but not perfect.

I also used DeepZoom.com on the iPad to confirm tides, currents and timing.

When on the water I used Navionics on my phone to track and watch the route at various zoom levels as a second set of eyes for Scott for navigating tighter areas.
I also discovered that Navionics has a pretty good Tides and Cuurent feature built.

So we had plenty of back-up sources for verification and failures of any one source.

 

[Scott T-Bird]

And while @Scott T-Bird was using Eldridge, CP and Navioncs moble he also had a very nice set of laminated paper charts he would study the night before to get the bigger picture and share the routes with me.


I also used DeepZoom.com on the iPad to confirm tides, currents and timing.


So we had plenty of back-up sources for verification and failures of any one source.

I forgot about that chart book. I bought it from West Marine years ago and it covers the east coast from Cape Cod (south shore, canal, MV & Nantucket) to Cape May, including Hudson River. It's about 40 pages of full size charts at various scales, with a ton of great information. We looked at it daily. It's in a spiral bound book that makes it very convenient to store and open to the correct pages. It was the best use I've had of it ever, so far!

The DeepZoom app is also a fantastic verification of the planning we did with Eldridge. Yes, we did have everything covered with multiple sources, though we didn't bring a sextant!

 

[BigEasy]

I forgot about that chart book. I bought it from West Marine years ago and it covers the east coast from Cape Cod (south shore, canal, MV & Nantucket) to Cape May, including Hudson River. It's about 40 pages of full size charts at various scales, with a ton of great information. We looked at it daily. It's in a spiral bound book that makes it very convenient to store and open to the correct pages. It was the best use I've had of it ever,

Scott,
I have a comparable chart book for the Gulf Coast. I know, it’s considered “old school” now; however it is nice to be able to view the Big Picture, especially for planning. Even if you don’t use it for actual navigation, they are nice to have onboard.