Wayne.B wrote:
On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 09:25:43 -0500, Jeff wrote:

We learned of this as the rescue was happening. Very strange to be
enjoying a nice sail down the Chesapeake while our friends were in a
survival situation.

Good decisions lead to good outcomes, and vice versa.

Sorry to hear about your friend's problem but what the heck were they
thinking of this time of year?

Actually, my friends (the authors of the email) are the ones who took
the coastal route - I visited with them in Portsmouth and again in
Onset, now they're on the Chesapeake, headed towards South Carolina.
This is more my style of cruising nowadays.

Their friends, of whom they've often spoken but I've never met, are
the ones that got rescued. I'm sure I'll get a fuller story in the
coming weeks. In particular, I'm wondering if they had planned to go
earlier and got delayed, or were they waiting out the hurricane season.

Although not much could tempt me to do that trip this time of year,
there is a perception that mid-November to mid-December is a window
between the hurricanes and the winter storms, so there's always a few
boats that try. But it seems like a crap shoot to me, and every year
there's a story like this one.

I wonder if they scuttled the sailboat; it sounded like it was
floating well, and perhaps it will turn up somewhere.

On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 13:18:18 -0500, Jeff wrote:

there is a perception that mid-November to mid-December is a window
between the hurricanes and the winter storms, so there's always a few
boats that try. But it seems like a crap shoot to me, and every year
there's a story like this one.

The risk of hurricanes and tropical storms is largely over by the end
of October but there are ferocious low pressure systems that sweep
through from Canada and the mid-west in November. It's much less
risky to take a coastal route as far south as possible before heading
east to Bermuda.

Leaving from Newport, RI instead of Nova Scotia saves 300 to 400
miles of open ocean exposure. Leaving from North Carolina saves no
distance but gets you quickly into somewhat more stable weather once
you clear Hatteras and the Gulf Stream.