Sailing Through New York NY USA

Fabulous weather for a run down the East River

On Wednesday 24 October all the planets aligned.  The forecast was good for a 2 day passage from Port Washington to the Chesapeake Bay, BV was in good shape with the prop shaft repairs complete and routine maintenance squared away, the tide was favourable for a mid-morning transit south down the East River and it was a glorious, if somewhat chilly, autumn day. Perfect!

Throg’s Neck Bridge (great name!) – the start of the East River

Nicky had spent some time over the previous few days pouring over the books trying to decide on the best time to depart Port Washington.  She had been looking to get the best of the tide along the East River without ending up with too much through the notorious Hell Gate and without losing it all before we had rounded Sandy Hook on the New Jersey coast, the entrance to the lower New York Harbour.  In the end she/we decided on leaving at around 0930, about an hour before the tide was forecast to start ebbing (running southwest) at Hell Gate, and it worked well for us.  We butted a small amount of tide in the area around Throg’s Neck Bridge but after that the tide built with us and carried BV along and through Hell Gate at a reasonable, but not breakneck, speed.

(Bottom) Going through Hell Gate

Hell Gate, an area where the river narrows whilst making two 90 degree bends and where high tidal flows occur, was named many, many years ago when the riverbed was covered in semi-submerged rocks and boats ran the gauntlet of the tidal flow whilst wending their way through the maze under sail and oars.  Over the years hundreds of boats and ships were wrecked in the area ……. and then the Army Corps of Engineers did their stuff with dynamite and the reliable internal combustion engine was invented.  But the Army Corps of Engineers left a pretty undulating seabed which sets up some impressive standing waves when the tidal flow runs fast, a matter not helped by the fact that some of the subway tunnels run on top of (not under) the riverbed. We’ve seen some of the You-Tube clips of yachts hobby-horsing their way through/over huge waves in Hell Gate and weren’t keen to add our transit to the list of views.  Happily, our timings worked beautifully and we had smooth seas to go with our 10-11knots speed over ground.

(Top) the final stages of the passage through Hell Gate.  (Bottom) We had read dire warnings about the amount of traffic on the East River but we saw relatively little

We came out the other side, still moving fast, and into midtown Manhattan.  We looked for Alan and Kate Richards walking Amy’s dog but they were not to be seen though there were plenty of other people using the riverside walk and park.

(Left) the UN Building (Right and bottom left) The Chrysler Building

And then we were entering the Manhattan of our first day as tourists.  There was the Chrysler Building and the UN Building,…..

(Top) ‘Some of the best views are behind you’, so said friends Murray and Cate on Coolchangewho ‘did’ the East River a few days before us.  (Bottom centre) The Chrysler Building.  (Bottom right) The Empire State Building, mostly hidden, but as one of the tallest buildings in New York it’s difficult to keep
it entirely out of the picture!

……the Empire State Building and plenty more interesting constructions that we hadn’t seen or noticed as we had walked around.

(Top row) Approaching Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges; (middle row) Manhattan Bridge; (bottom left) Manhattan Bridge ‘in the rear view mirror’; (top right and bottom right) Brooklyn Bridge

All too soon we were passing under Manhattan Bridge and counting down our time on target to Brooklyn Bridge for Dinger and Julie Bell.  We arrived a little early – hopefully not too early for them – but the bridge was crowded (and high up) and there were ferries and lots of other traffic to worry about.  We didn’t see them but we did wave!

The bottom end of Manhattan and (bottom right) the Wall Street heliport 

Once through Brooklyn Bridge we were nearly past Manhattan.  All that was left was the Wall Street heliport, the Staten Island Ferry terminal and Battery Park.  And so, humming the theme tune to the Pierce Brosnan/Rene Roussau remake of ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’ we passed the heliport…..

(Top) Staten Island ferry port complete with orange ferry.  (Bottom) Iconic Manhattan with 1 World Trade Centre in the centre and Battery Park beneath

….and made it past the ferry terminal at a rare lull in ferry movements.  From there we headed west across the bottom end of the Hudson River towards Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

🎵New York, New York, New York 🎶

(Top left) Statue of Liberty. (Top right) Ellis Island. (Bottom) To prove that we were actually there!

The area around Ellis Island and Liberty Island is incredibly busy with ferry traffic and day-tripper boats but we managed to get through unscathed and had time to get some pictures as well.

Not sure we could have got much closer legally without having arrived by ferry!

There’s an exclusion zone off the 2 islands so we had to give them a reasonable berth and, having originally said that we were hoping to anchor off the Statue of Liberty and get a picture of BV with the Lady behind her, with the weather window we had that was clearly not an option.

Wow!  What a morning!

So I did my ‘candid camera photographer’ impression and Nicky kept us pointed in about the right direction and we headed down the harbour towards the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

HMS Queen Elizabeth at anchor off NYC

In doing so we passed close enough to Britain’s new aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, to get some decent pictures of her too.  She was anchored on the other side of the main channel to us so we couldn’t get too close and, in any case, some highly armed protective patrol vessels were keeping a beady eye out , so it’s probably just as well that we were a good distance off.

Leaving NYC and heading under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge

And shortly after we had passed the ferry terminal on Staten Island and the number of other vessels around us dropped off dramatically.  So we took the opportunity to hoist the mainsail so that we could sail under the Narrows Bridge and out of Upper New York Harbour.  It was 1300, half an hour earlier than we had planned, and the tide was still forecast to be in our favour for another 2 hours or so.  Plenty of time to get around Sandy Hook and be well on our way towards Chesapeake Bay.  What a fabulous morning’s sightseeing we’d had.

New York, New York, USA