This Was On Our Bucket List! - Sailing Through NEW YORK CITY [Ep. 9]

We cruise through Long Island Sound, the East River, and Hell Gate on our sailboat. We pass by Manhattan and New York City for a bucket list sail past the Statue of Liberty and out to the Atlantic Ocean.

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0:00 Point Judith
Kate steers us into our next episode, Hell’s Gate. We finally set off sailing on our around the world voyage. We leave the safety and security of Jamestown and Newport, RI, our home port, for the last time. :

0:23 Poppin Bottles
We pop a bottle of champagne to celebrate the voyage and christen the new name on the boat, Sweet Ruca, as we sail into the sunset. It felt like our shakedown cruise was over, and the adventure was really starting. Roxy the sailboat dog tried to get into every camera shot she could.

0:44 Intro

1:01 Champagne Sailing & Sunset Cruise
We enter the Block Island Sound as we sail past Point Judith into the night. We navigate at night through the tricky Long Island Sound entrance. It’s not that bad really, but for a first-timer to the area, it was a bit intimidating. To add to the level of excitement there were many ships, boats, buoys, and ferries to avoid. We don’t mention it in the video, but we sailed right past Plum Island, which is shrouded in myth and mystery. It is a federal disease research center, off-limits to the public….we kept our distance accordingly.

2:59 Anchor Up
We were trying to make the push from Jamestown to New York City’s East River entrance, in roughly one day. We sailed approximately 133 miles in 24 hours, stopping for about 6 hours to rest off of Port Jefferson, NY. We anchored at night, using the chart and depth sounder only, off of Oil Field Point, and woke up in the morning a little surprised at how close to the beach we were.

5:40 Let it Rain
After the nap, it was off sailing again towards the tall buildings on the horizon, NYC. We would stop one more night to ensure that we lined up our passage through Hell’s Gate with the proper timing of the tides. Anchoring overnight in Manhasset Bay, we did a little boat work, had some fun, and got rained on. Curtis also saw a Seawind catamaran that he liked (we saw this at the boat show later, and this is what Tula’s Endless Summer’s new boat is going to be).

8:04 East River NYC
It was bitter cold as we started into the East River early in the morning. We were fully suited up in foul weather gear, hats, and gloves. We mostly had to motor as the currents were strong and there was not a lot of wind. We approach NYC and pass under numerous bridges.

11:49 Time-Lapse
We let the time-lapse run for much of this so you can get the full video. We again pass lots of interesting ships, one with a huge crane on a barge.

13:54 Hell’s Gate
It was a cold day in hell! The currents here can be treacherous, as there is a huge flow of water between the Atlantic ocean and Long Island Sound that is constricted into a narrow sluice. There is lots of boat and ship traffic in a narrow and curving channel. We reach a speed of 11 knots over ground motoring with the current. It is imperative that one times this pass correctly with the current in a slow sailboat. As a bonus to seeing all the cool ships, we passed by a Melges 24, a special boat to us as it is the type of boat we met aboard while racing together!

15:43 Statue of Liberty
We exit the East River near Manhatten. It was really cool to see New York City from this angle on a boat. We sailed, ok motored because there was no wind, past the Statue of Liberty. This is a bucket list type of thing for people not from the city. Kate and I took our obligatory tourist selfies with the statue and skyline in the background.

16:10 Verrazano Bridge
We finally set the sails as we exist the Hudson River, underneath the Veranzanno Bridge, and into the Atlantic Ocean.

#sailing #sailingvlog #ocean #sailboat #sail #sailinglife

About Us:
So who are we? Well, we aren’t Sailing La Vagabonde, Sailing Doodles, Sailing Uma, Gone With the Wynns, or Sailing Delos. We don’t have a fancy catamaran, but we do have a pretty spiffy and fast monohull sailboat that likes to eat cruising catamarans like the Fountaine Pajots, Leopards, and Lagoons for lunch and leave them in the dust 😉 We are Kate and Curtis, a YouTube sailing couple, with our sailing dog Roxy, aboard SV Sweet Ruca. We used to be sailboat racers on the great lakes, and our goal is to cruise around the world via the capes (the wrong way or the hard way). We will see if this will happen or not, as the “new normal” has put quite a damper on our travels. For now, enjoy our videos and join us on our journey via our YouTube Channel.

‘Till Next Time 🙂