New York, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere

The fog was as dense as French Canadian pea soup. It was so thick that you could not see more than 50 feet in any direction.  We were approaching the major shipping lane into New York Harbor. I was startled by a loud foghorn from a freighter that was steaming towards us at 14 knots. It was so loud that the sound seemed to be coming from a few feet away. The first reaction was look around in all directions expecting to see the bow of the 333 meter vessel seconds before it split us in half. The two of us on board had been at sea for the last 36 hours and we were wet, cold and tired. We had relied heavily on our electronic charts, AIS and radar to keep clear of other ships. AIS is Automatic Identification System which transmits a ship’s position so that other ships are aware it’s position. We have this on board my boat S/V Ileana and it is mandatory to have this on cargo vessels, so we had seen this huge freighter and had slowed down to let it pass us before cutting across the shipping channel. After the initial panic, the radar showed that this vessel had a CPA or Closest Point of Approach of 500 feet so we really had nothing to worry about until the foghorn went off again, seemingly louder this time….. and I went though the entire panic process again….

I had been dodging a major weather system that had been hammering the US east coast for the past week in Norfolk Virginia and was waiting for a weather window to sail to New York City. From there, the plan was to sail up the Hudson river, take the mast off and then motor up the lock system of the Erie Canal to enter Lake Ontario at Oswega. From there it was a 20 hour sail to Port Credit where I would keep the boat for the summer. My crew of 3 other sailors who had brought the boat with me from the Bahamas had to leave for other commitments and flew off in different directions, but Jeff, a sailor I had met in Georgetown Bahamas flew in to help me sail the boat back to Toronto.

Friday May 13^th was the start of that weather window. Everyone knows that Friday the 13^th is a day of bad luck. Most sensible sailors will not leave for a voyage on any Friday because it will likely bring bad luck. As I continue with my sailing odyssey I am more inclined to follow these sailing superstitions. For example I will not allow bananas on my boat (although I like bananas). Sometimes as a sailor you need all the luck you can get, so there is little point in tempting fate. Well, many of these folklores were established before modern technology with weather prediction and the Predict Wind App, so we felt confident in having a safe passage. Throw in AIS, radar and electronic charts…… well it was an easy decision to leave.

We left the dock at Little Creek Marina at 7AM in thick fog. There was little wind, but as we headed out into the ocean we had 14 knots of wind on the beam and we set the sails. Sometimes the wind would diminish and we would motor sail. At night we would do 3 hour shifts with one of us sleeping and the other on deck looking out for other ships, checking out the sails and monitoring the chart position. We found ourselves entering the harbor of New York City in thick fog at dusk a day and a half later. Our destination was Liberty Landing Marina in New Jersey just across the river from Manhattan.

Both Jeff and I had our eyes glued to the instrument panels watching the radar to monitor the heavy ship traffic and the charts to see where we should be heading as we could not see more that 50 feet in front of us because of the fog. We had to cross the shipping channel and we saw the 333 meter Hyundai Honour freighter on the radar screen coming straight at us 2 miles away. This meant that in less than 10 minutes it would be upon us and rather than try to scoot in front of the ship, we slowed my boat down and planned to slip across the channel after she had passed us. Things were going well….until I heard the blast of the foghorn from this approaching beast and in an instant I began to question the reliability and accuracy of the electronic instruments. The sound seemed to be coming less that 100 feet away. We waited some more after checking the instrument screens confirming we were safe. When no collision occurred, we breathed a sigh of relief…. until the next blast from the foghorn and once again…. another anxiety attack. The vessel slipped by without incident, and we cautiously began to cross the shipping channels. About half way across we were hailed on channel 16….the emergency channel “ S/V Ileana this BC Berlin. We are steaming towards you at 13 knots and are 2 miles out from you. What are your intentions?” BC Belin is a 333-meter freighter that was heading out to sea. Jeff handled the call as I was was glued to the instrument panel and explained that we would be out of the shipping channel heading north when they got to our position. It was comforting that they had our well being in mind.

We continued motoring north into New York through the thick fog. We were about to pass under the Verrazano Bridge according to the chart and radar information when I began to question whether there were any bridge supports that we had to dodge or whether our mast was too tall. The fog was so thick we could not see the bridge and the only way we knew it was there was because of the roar of trucks and cars racing over the bridge above us. This too was unnerving but I was getting used to the anxiety of being surrounded by fog as I was becoming more confident in the reliability of the information that we were getting from the instruments. Then we started to experience the ferry traffic that would zip along at 26 knots ignoring the fog and darkness as if it wasn’t there. We spent the next hour dodging these boats. Not sure how we were able to miss them all and arrived at Liberty Landing Marina at 10 PM at night in pitch darkness. Well that perhaps is an exaggeration as New York City is never in pitch darkness, but it was still unsettling.

The next day I contacted person on the Hudson River who I had organized to take down the mast. I spoke with Mike earlier in March and he felt confident that he was up to the job, although it was a big mast, 72 feet high. However, when I called him from Liberty Landing Marina he said that he was pretty busy and maybe the mast was too big for him and perhaps I should try somewhere else. Well, somewhere else meant Liberty Landing. They had a 2 week wait and could not do this until early June. With $400 per night docking fees this would add up to a huge expense. I tried Scarano Boatworks in Albany on the Hudson. The good news was that they could take the mast off and put it on to of the boat on a cradle. The bad news was they could not do this until June 2^nd, in 2 weeks time. I guess this is where the bad luck piece of the story comes into play and perhaps a little more thought should have gone into this leaving on a Friday.

We are currently docked at Shady Harbour Marina and the plan is to fly back to Toronto. I will come back to Albany June 1^st and the mast comes off at 8AM June 2^nd. I will be needing a couple of sailors to help me bring Ileana home, so any of you out there reading this who can free up 5 or 6 days in early June…… please contact me. If you like adventure and all of the uncertainties that come with being a sailor you might just have the adventure of a lifetime!