Poughkeepsie YC - Waiting for weather

Waiting for weather we like, not yet

Welcome back to the sailing adventures of Fleetwing as we head south to Key West for the winter. Unfortunately, we haven't left yet. The weather is just not cooperating, especially the remnants of Florence which will pass directly over the Poughkeepsie YC on its way out to sea and eventually Ireland (have you ever wondered how Ireland gets the equivalent of a rainforest's worth of rain every year?) We have the boat packed and ready to go. There appeared to be a window on Wednesday for a passage down the New Jersey coast but the various weather apps and Coast Guard are all over the place. For us to reach our starting point at Atlantic Highlands would involve us transiting New York Harbor in a downpour, not something I want to do. It's due to rain all day Tuesday on the Hudson River.

We'll enjoy the view at PYC for a while.

Given all that, we'll take a pass on starting out Monday morning (it's a two day trip to the Atlantic Highlands for us) and look for better weather later on. For entertainment, just look at some of the weather predictions.

 

PocketGrib, 15 to 20 kts

PocketGrib has been my old standby until it was unseated by PredictWind but I still use it occasionally. What's not shown here is the southern swell from Florence with the 20 kt winds out of the northeast.

Here's PredictWind, not too bad using their twist on the Euro model.

Windy is the most benign of all, only 11 kts?

I've always used SwellInfo in the past. Looks more windy in the morning but you're going into a 2.8 to 2.4 ft southern swell which is not too bad with the 7 sec period.

So the wind will be either 20 kts, or 15 kts, or 11 kts - take your pick.

Our real problem is getting down to our launching point at the Atlantic Highlands and braving rain on Tuesday down the Hudson and through NY Harbor so we'll wait it out. It does look like the weather appears a little unstable.