“40:48N 73:48W”

 

Thursday 7th September 2017.

 

Throgs Neck is the start of the East River at Long Island Sound. The current in the river can be fast and around Hell Gate, where the river narrows at a bend, it can be quite turbulent. The plan is to arrive at Hell Gate at slack water, and there are various formulae for working this out. We used 1 hour before high water at Throgs Neck to go west (towards New York), so we should arrive there at 11.15.  It is always reassuring if there are other boats heading in the same direction, and there were two other sail boats going into the river as we arrived there.

 

Nice journey through, quiet water at Hell Gate, but there was a tug pushing a very long barge as we approached Hell Gate; we could see him on the AIS before the bend, and he did call up the first boat in our little flotilla of 3 to warn them.  For some reason as we went round the bend the sailing boat in front of us suddenly turned across the bow of the barge, much to the consternation of the tug skipper who hooted him a lot!  We passed on the port side of the barge with no problems, and carried on into New York Harbour.