We worked on getting Seas The Day into ship shape for a few hours until Vicky's friends from Brooklyn came over a little after lunch. We took them out for a July 4th excursion in front of the Statue of Liberty and then headed up the Hudson river to test our ability to make way against the current.
May used to live near vicky while she was growing up in Guangzhou, she married Gerald and they immigrated to the US a while ago. Joining us were May's sister and her daughter, Maggie, who has sailed with us a couple times before.
Vicky had the helm for a while... the water was very choppy for a 31' boat, and traffic was as unpredictable as usual around the statue. Maggie decided to ride on the bow and seemed to enjoy the core workout that position gave her.
Once we got to the statue, we had to slow down and get photos.
Then we headed up the Hudson. Maggie hugged the mast. (I would not let anyone of lesser strength ride there under this chop, but Maggie thrived up there.)
We reached a point alongside the tip of Battery park around 3:30 which was a little after low tide, I figured the current would still be against us, but it wouldn't be too severe. I was wrong... we made maybe 3.5 knots at full throttle, half of our hull speed of 7 that we can usually reach.
I learned later from the Captain of Adventure that we're currently having a spring tide (highs are higher, lows are lower) and thus the volume of water moving is greater than normal. So with the throttle wide open, and making 3.5 knots (SOG), 30 minutes later we were just at the air intakes for the Holland Tunnel. That's 1.5 nm from the battery (for you math fiends, there was a fair bit of being pushed side-to-side while we were pointing out the sights for our guests).
We found a place between the statue boat and the fuel barge to turn around and head back to Liberty landing. Our speed instantly picked up to 7 knots with the change in current, and the water got a fair bit rougher, so we had a quick rough short trip back to the Morris Canal and Liberty Landing. I realized a couple of things very quickly, the main one of which is that we might want to rethink our plans for the rest of the week. Tomorrow's plan is to make it up just past the Tappan Zee... 20 nm... that could be 7 or more hours of fighting the hudson current.
After getting back, we had some more photos of friends with the boat.
Seas The Day absolutely sparkled after the "Vicky treatment".
After the photos, Maggie and Vicky caught up in the cockpit and May and Gerald explored below deck for a while.
Since it was July 4th, "Festival and Fireworks" was taking place across the street, so the women folks went to get food and brought back a nice spread of burgers, chicken fingers, pizza and lobster rolls.
Unfortunately, Gerald has to work at 2:00 AM so they had to leave to avoid the long traffic back up after everything ended. About an hour later, we got a nice rainstorm and thought for sure that the fireworks were cancelled, but there was a break in the rain a little before 9:00 PM and suddenly they were going. Everyone scrambled to their chosen vantage point. A tripod on a boat is useless, so I experimented and found that holding the camera against the boom at mid-ship (less rocking), got me a few acceptable frames (out of 80 or so).
It was a little weird watching 4th of July fireworks through the rigging of a UK sailing vessel, after they ended, horns were blowing all around and people were cheering. One boat was relatively quiet...
After the hoopla, we settled down for some wine (by fake LED candlelight), and discussed what our plans are for next. Do we want to continue on with the planned trip up the Hudson, potentially fighting the current the whole way?
We're experiencing spring tides... during our desired travel window each day (mid morning to mid afternoon), the tide will be falling and the current will be agains us while going north. That means tomorrow's 20 nm plan could take 6 to 7 hours, and a 30nm day could take 9 or 10 hrs. The alternatives are to shorten the trip and accept the slower speeds, get up bright and early (pre-sunrise in some cases... not very likely given Vicky's sleeping habits), or maybe think about something else... perhaps heading into LI sound, or back to the Raritan bay for some "skunkholing" (exploring the shoreline, seeking quiet spots to anchor and just relax on the boat).
We'll see...
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