Free Energy is about 170nm from Newport off the coast of New Jersey. Last night was not the most comfortable night on the boat, but conditions improved as the night went on as we got ever closer to the coast. The sailing we’ve had most of the day today has been very pleasant.
We are planing to anchor near a little fishing village on the New Jersey coast this evening. This will let us avoid some nasty weather that will pass later tonight nearer to Long Island. Tomorrow morning we’ll resume heading to Newport and are currently expecting to arrive Tuesday morning.
Conditions for sailing are quite nice now and normally we would be moving by the wind and sails alone, but we are also running the motor with the sails up to boost our speed. The reason for this is the anchorage we are headed to along the New Jersey coast has a tricky entrance and I want to make it to the anchorage while it’s still light out. I also called the Boat US office that’s located in the harbor to get some local advice on how to pass the tricky part of the entrance to the harbor and now feel confident about being able to enter safely this evening.
You can think of Boat US as the equivalent of AAA (American Automobile Association) for the water. You pay an annual membership fee that’s fairly nominal and if your boat becomes disabled or needs assistance Boat US has vessels they will send out to tow or assist you. Any situation that is life threatening the Coast Guard will assist, but if you vessel is just disabled and everyone is safe you’ll need use your Boat US (or Seatow, another equivalent company) membership or pay a large fee to have them assist you if you don’t have a membership.
I used my Boat US membership last summer when Free Energy snagged a lobster pot outside of Boston. Because Free Energy was snagged on the pot I couldn’t easily bring the sails down and because the sails were up I couldn’t get into the water to free the pot because the boat would take off without me onboard. So I called Boat US and they sent a boat with a diver onboard who got there in about 1h and spend all of 15 seconds under Free Energy to get the pot off.
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