Sailing from Newport to Norfolk in Sept turned out to be a challenge. Between the tropical storms, hurricanes, frontal systems and persistent southwesterly winds it is difficult to make your way south in September. We ended up breaking the trip into 3 legs waiting out the storm and frontal passages for periods of favorable winds.
Our first leg was from Newport to the NYC area through Long Island Sound. We had a 12 hour window of 10-15kt winds from the south which would enable us to sail westerly through the Sound. We would have preferred to have headed straight for Cape May but the southerly winds would not quite support the SW transit, the waves would have made the trip more difficult, and most important, TS Hannah was rapidly approaching and it would have been a race, into the wind/waves, to get to Cape May in time. And, who wants to be anchored at Cape May when a TS blows through? The anchorage is small, narrow and not the best holding. Instead, we went for the Long Island Sound option. It turned out to be wise.
We departed Newport at 0230 to take advantage of the outgoing tide and to be at the Race, the entrance to the Sound, at slack water (0900) and be able to ride the tide down the Sound. We had to motor into a slight headwind for the first 6hrs until the southerly breeze kicked in right about the time we arrived at the Race. It was solid fog for these six hours, but the fog cleared just as we arrived at the Race, which was great as there were about 20 fishing boats of various sizes (many too small to show up well on radar) fishing there. We had carefully passed Pt Judith harbor as a few fishing boats exited… all were talking on the radio and we coordinated passages in the fog without problem. We then enjoyed 10 hours of fine sailing down the sound with 15kts of southerly breeze on the beam and a 1-2kt current astern. The sky was blue with scattered puffy cumulus and the seas were 1-2ft, near perfect conditions. We were very happy to not be offshore motoring into the 3-5ft waves there. At sunset the wind died and we motored the final 3hrs to Manhasset Bay by Port Washington and dropped the anchor at the first shallow water on the right. We were asleep by 2400 for a couple hours of sleep before heading for the East River to catch the tide at 0400.
The next question was where to ride out TS Hannah? It was forecasted to come up the coast to the Delaware Bay area, then move out to the east towards Nantucket. NYC would catch the northwestern quadrant of the storm with winds from the east to north at 20-30kts. Following the storm there would be northwesterly winds at 15-25kts for 12-18hrs which would be perfect for taking us south to Cape May. We wanted to pick a spot to ride out the modest storm conditions, then quickly exit NY harbor and take advantage of the winds to get us as close to Cape May as possible before the winds died. My idea was to get through NYC ahead of the storm and anchor somewhere near Sandy Hook, NJ, where we would be positioned to exit quickly after the storm passed. So, at 0430 we slipped our anchor and headed for the East River.
We had a fast transit through NYC riding the 4kt tidal current down the East River and 2kts through NY harbor. Making 8-10kts over the ground, we were quickly down to the Raritan Bay. By now TS Hannah was making its way up the coast over Virginia and was clearly tracking further west than forecasted. That meant the winds would be even less than forecasted and the direction would be from the east to southeast to southwest as it passed over NY. I would need a anchorage with good protection from the south. The NJ coastline around the Atlantic Highlands looked like an excellent choice with high bluffs and trees along the southern coastline. Assuming the Atlantic Highlands port behind the protective seawall would be full, we chose to anchor off the Keyport mooring field which still provided good protection from the south.
All went fine, according to plan for the first half of the storm. The winds arrived from the east to southeast at 20-25kts for the first half of the storm from 1400 to 1800. We rode the conditions very comfortably hanging on our anchor chain, never even straightening the chain out to the 150ft of chain I had set out in 8ft of water. We read books, had lunch and dinner and watched the storm progress on the laptop via our wifi link to the internet. Then, as often seems to happen, the storm decided to change course dramatically. While it had come up the coast further west than forecasted, directly over NYC it decided to head east towards Cape Cod as it had originally been forecasted to pass over. That was not good news for us at our anchorage position as it placed us in the western hemisphere of the storm with strong winds from the north, and we had no protection from the north, in fact we had a long fetch across the entire Raritan Bay for the seas to build.
The elongated eye of the storm passed directly over us between about 1800 to 2100 providing a respite from the winds, only about 20kts. Then, the backside of the storm struck. At 2115, the winds shifted abruptly to the north and went to 30kts with higher gusts. Within 30 minutes the waves had built to 4-5ft and the winds to 35kts with gusts to 45kts. We were now on a bucking bronco as the boat pitched up and down the waves, tugging hard and sailing back and forth on the anchor chain. Suddenly, the dinghy which we had secured on the stern of our boat sitting on the scoop stern and lashed securely out of the wind began flailing about wildly. One of the lines that attached to the transom of the dinghy had broken and the dinghy was now hanging askew and being pounded by the 5ft waves as the stern of our boat rose and fell. Hanging on dearly as the stern pitched up and down, I was able to get another safety line on the dinghy front handle, then let it go astern attached to the boat by its bridle line and the safety line. It rode out the rest of the storm tethered behind us, pitching dramatically and tugging hard at its bridle, but doing ok. In hindsight, we should have deflated and stored it below. I had not done this as we were not expecting 40kt winds and large waves, but the lesson learned is to be prepared for the worst case scenario, then happy when it doesn’t occur.
With the wind shift to the north, we were now hanging on the anchor straight towards the mooring field, a direction I had not planned on. I knew after setting the anchor that we had 50ft of clearance between us and the closest boat in the mooring field, and that’s exactly where we were sitting, 50ft away from that boat – which looks real close in the dark with 40kts of wind blowing. Afraid that we might be dragging on the anchor, I started the engine and sat at the helm with that engine in gear and just above idle speed keeping the strain on the anchor line reduced and ready to maneuver should we start dragging. One of the good things about tropical storms is that the winds and rain are quite warm, in the 70s. That means you can sit in the storm for extended periods without getting chilled. Fortunately, the strong winds only blew for a little over an hour and by 2230 things were calming down. As the wind shifted more to the northwest, we were pushed by the wind farther away from the nearest boat and could relax some. It was also clear that we had not dragged the anchor at all so I shut down the engine and retired below. Within another half hour the winds were down to the low 20s, waves were subsiding and the storm was basically over. We went to bed to get some sleep before our early morning departure for Cape May.
