“TURTLEHEART”
AROUND LONG ISLAND TRIP
AUGUST 3-5, 2012
Two friends and I took my IP27 “Turtleheart” around Long Island last weekend. Here, in brief, are some observations and lessons learned by someone with a lot less cruising experience than most of you on this list:
1. Our route was Mamaroneck-Hell Gate-NY Harbor-Montauk-Plum Gut-Mamaroneck. We timed our departure to arrive at Hell Gate at slack and then rode the ebb all the way out of NY Harbor. That was a good move. We went through Plum Gut as the tide was changing – lots of standing waves, like a washboard; bumpier than any of my many rides through The Race!
2. There was plenty of traffic on the East River and in NY Harbor. Staying in touch with other boats by radio – especially tugs pushing barges – was important.
3. Keeping track of commercial traffic by AIS receiver (interlinked to the chart plotter) was also important.
4. Montauk Point was very, very foggy. I don’t have radar and wished I had. We had the hailer/fog horn going, and kept a very sharp lookout, all of which paid off as we got return whistles and horn blasts from other boats. We stayed well away from the commercial routes around Montauk.
5. Our watch plan worked well. During the day, we had one man on and rotated two-hour shifts. (At least one other person was almost always up on deck during the day and helped with lookout and radio duties.) From 9 to 9, we had staggered four-hour shifts so there were always two people up, one in the first half of his shift and one in the second half of his shift. No one was at the wheel for more than an hour at a time unless we were on autopilot.
6. The whole trip took 47 hours. Winds were disappointingly light (under 5kts.) much of the time, even on Long Island’s South Shore. We motored (5+ kts. at 2400 rpm) for 26 hours and sailed (also 5+ kts. under main and genoa) for 21hours.
Ready for the next trip.
Michael Luskin
"Turtleheart" IP27-146
Scarsdale, NY
