Cruising World – August 2019

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71

HANDS-ON SAILOR

bouncing the boat around, any
crud in the bottom of the fuel
tank gets shaken up, and you’ll
fi nd yourself having to change
fi lters until your tank is clean.
Along those lines, make sure
your engine is happy being run
for a long period. Test it by
motoring continuously for sev-
eral hours. Too often engines
in sailboats are used simply to
leave the mooring and charge
the batteries. That’s a rotten
thing to do to a diesel.
Your engine manual should
tell you what rpm you should
achieve running in forward
gear. Get clear of other boats
one day, and slowly mash the
throttle all the way to the
limit. Leave it there for fi ve
minutes or so. You won’t hurt
your engine. Check the engine
temperature to make sure it
stays under about 180 degrees.
If it doesn’t, it’s time to give
your cooling system some love.
If it revs above the maximum
rpm rating, you might be able
to add pitch to your propeller;
if it comes up short, you
might have too much pitch.
(Obviously, I’m simplifying,
so check with your mechanic
before making changes.) Your
cruising rpm is 75 to 80 percent
of maximum rpm. Top up your
diesel tanks and run for several
hours at that speed, then fi ll
the tank again to give you an
idea of your fuel consumption;
this will be an important
number to keep in mind when
you start thinking about fuel
management on passage. Bear
in mind that running at
60 percent of max rpm can
greatly increase your range
when you have to stretch your
fuel in a prolonged calm. I
always leave my main up for a
little extra push and to damp
any rolling—unless the sail is
slatting hard, which can kill
your sail in short order. Bear in
mind also that it is not really
that hard to make 3 or 4 knots
just sailing in light airs.
While you’ve been preparing
your boat and stowing spares,
you also should have been
thinking about crew. I like a
three-person crew who can
all steer a compass course and
know how to sail, including
when to trim or ease the sails,

and when to call the skipper

with questions. A three-person

crew allows my favorite watch

system: three hours on and

six hours off. This allows the

skipper and crew almost a full

night’s sleep every nine hours,

a vital element for keeping

everyone safe and happy.

Enticing a good crew to take

the time out to sail with you is

a conundrum often solved with

the promise of good food. My

basic rule for provisioning is to

never put any food on the boat

that you wouldn’t eat at home.

So no canned stew and very

few tins of tuna, and defi nitely

none of those cups of soup

you add boiling water to. Our

daily routine is for everyone to

help themselves to breakfast

cereal (unless someone feels

like cooking for the crew);

lunch is help-yourself cold- cut

sandwiches, though in colder

weather we’ll sometimes fall

back to tomato soup and

grilled-cheese sandwiches. And

there is always plenty of peanut

butter and jelly aboard.

Except in the roughest

weather, we do our evening

meal together at the 1800

watch change. Stews, chili and

other meals can be premade

and frozen before departure.

Unless it’s rough, pasta is easy

to cook underway and, along

THE COASTAL ROUTE SOUTH

If the weather is bad, and systems keep mov-

ing through too often to leave you without a

good window to make Bermuda from New En-

gland, the best option is to hop down the coast

to Beaufort, North Carolina, one of my favor-

ite ports on the East Coast. Typically, from

New England, I head west down Long Island

Sound to New York City. From Sandy Hook,

New Jersey, at the entrance to New York Har-

bor, it’s a 110-mile hop down the Jersey shore

to Cape May. I’ve had easy rides in smooth wa-

ter half a mile off the beach, though it was

blowing 40 knots from the northwest.

If conditions become uncomfortable, you

can bail out into Manasquan Inlet or Atlantic

City, where you’ll fi nd good year-round mari-

nas. From Cape May, it’s 150 miles across the

mouth of Delaware Bay and down the Del-

MarVa Peninsula into Chesapeake Bay, where

you can either head down the Intracoastal Wa-

terway or pop into Hampton or Little Creek,

Virginia, while you wait for a perfect weath-

er window to sail the 200 miles around Cape

Hatteras to Beaufort. From Beaufort, if you

want to carry on to the Caribbean, it’s 850

miles to the important 25 degrees north, 65 de-

grees west waypoint that lines you up to reach

across the trade winds and westerly current

the fi nal 400 miles to the Virgin Islands.

If you’re heading to the Bahamas or Flori-

da, and prefer to be on the ocean rather than

the Intracoastal, from Beaufort you have

the choice of making the 150-mile overnight

run to the Winah River or the 200 miles to

Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston is a

good jumping-off spot for 25N/65W, but it’s no

shorter than leaving from Beaufort.

South of Charleston, you have lots of ports

to choose from in Georgia, should you want

to tuck in, including Port Royal Sound, the

Savannah River and Brunswick.

In the 300 miles down the east coast of

Florida to Miami, without local knowledge,

your ports are limited to Jacksonville, the

sometimes-tricky St. Augustine Inlet, Cape

Canaveral, Fort Pierce, Lake Worth Inlet,

Port Everglades and, fi nally, Miami. The lat-

ter three are good spots from which to jump

across the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas.

If you’re heading to the Caribbean, you

won’t have done yourself any favors by depart-

ing from so far south; it’s still 850 miles to the

25N/65W waypoint, and now you stand a good

chance of having to sail upwind a good part

of the trip. Your tactic here should be to wait

for a cold front to approach. As the wind veers

from the prevailing southeast, make your de-

parture when it is out of the south making for

Great Isaac Cay at the entrance to Northwest

Providence Channel. The wind will contin-

ue to veer as the front approaches and moves

through. If you can make good speed, you

might carry southwest to northwesterly winds

most of the way to the waypoint.

An alternative is to island-hop all the way

to the Virgin Islands via the “Thorny Path,”

about which much has been written.

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Long Island

Sound

Chesapeake Bay

Delaware Bay

Port Royal Sound

Northwest

Providence

Channel

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Newport

New York City

Miami

Cape Hatteras

Cape Canaveral

Cape May

Charleston

Hampton

Beaufort

Savannah

St. Augustine

Fort Pierce

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Nautical Miles

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