Sailing LI (Huntington) to Catskill. NEED ADVICE! Zero experience.
- Thread starter martensonpassingwind
- Start date
Glad to hear it. If you get an early start you can catch a fair current north for a long way. I’d try to get underway by 4:30 AM. First light is just before 5am.
Here is the breakdown. Started in Huntington Friday morning, made it to city island by 1pm or so. Watched the fireworks, left city island around 6:30 am and kicked a$$ going through hell gate and down east river. Turned the corner up the hudson where the current was crap for a while. Made it yonkers after a 9.5 hr day, crashed there for the night at this kick ass chill out yatch club. Then hit the water again at 6am next morning, got to Poughkeepsie at 4:30. Enjoyed a wonderful dinner delivered to our dock. Next day made a pit stop for gas in Saugerties and to catskill by 12pm today! What a CRAZY AND AMAZING experience!!! Happy to be in my own bed, but cant wait to be back on our boat to fine tune our sailing. We were getting pretty damn decent at it by day 5. Just, amazing. 12/10 would do again.
Congratulations! Sounds like you got the planning just right and executed perfectly. For our edification - did you get to sail up the Hudson very much. I'd think in the PM there would be some southerly wind from the Seabreeze but I don't know how far that would last until you got gradient wind distorted by the geography.
They say that on rivers the wind is usually against you and sometimes with you. I imagine with the palisades and relative steep banks of the Hudson that would be true. Is it?
They say that on rivers the wind is usually against you and sometimes with you. I imagine with the palisades and relative steep banks of the Hudson that would be true. Is it?
The Hudson isn’t affected by sea breeze. It pretty much echos the macro weather patterns in the area, except it’s wide enough to generate its own local wind effects and it’s surrounded by some sizable mountains and hills that can funnel the wind through the Hudson Valley, creating local gusts. (e.g. NJ Palisades, Bear Mountain and High Tor/ Little Tor, Storm King, West Point, the Catskill range ….etc.)
Lots of motoring up the Hudson. One day the wind was almost exclusively coming right toward us, but that was fun because we zigzagged and really enjoyed working the sails, and then the rest of the time it was pretty much on a run, also fun, also did a lot of zigzagging. There were a ton of sailboats out there! And the river is so dang wide that if you have the time you can just go with the wind! But for the sake of our journey we definitely had the motor on.
Haha YES tacking!!! We are getting way better at our terminology but miss the mark here and there! Thanks to everyone that offered up great advice and cheered us on!