Outside passage

I will be moving our DeFever 47 from Florida to the Chesapeake about April 1st. I am thinking of riding the Gulf Stream to shorten trip from a month to a few days. Any war stories from the ocean passage?

Randy Brown
Dream Fever

We’ve done it a few times under sail and power. Not a difficult run providing there is no North in the wind while in the stream and carefully choosing a weather window - especially for the Cape.

We jumped from the Abacos to the The Cape Fear River/Wilmington, NC for the same reason although it took us more than a few days. The weather and your fuel capacity are the two biggest considerations. Any northerlies can make the trip uncomfortable if not dangerous if you’re in the Gulf Stream.

Randy, what's your starting point? Keep in mind the stream is approximately 75-80 miles off JAX. Much closer off Miami.

Greetings,
Welcome aboard. Agree with previous comments. IF there is ANY north vector to the winds, get out/stay out of the Gulf stream. Also, if it blows hard you may have to wait for the seas to calm down.

We will be leaving from Ft Myers, so we have the option to jump out from the Keys if the weather window is good or cross Okeechobee and jump out at Stuart if we need to let the seas lay down for a few days.

If you need/would like a watch keeper/deckhand I’m available and just love to be on boats!! If I knew where the emojis were then I’d put some right here...... I’m in Burnt Store Marina.

The fastest most efficient path to Solomon’s would have you leaving from palm beach and running offshore to Moorhead city/ Beaufort area. From there take the icw, not only is it a shorter distance (230 miles vs over 300 w/o any stream benefit) but you won’t be subjected to the whims of Mother Nature in shallows off of cape Hatteras.

Let's see North winds against a south current? That would be fun.........

Rpbrown said:

We will be leaving from Ft Myers, so we have the option to jump out from the Keys if the weather window is good or cross Okeechobee and jump out at Stuart if we need to let the seas lay down for a few days.

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I'll be leaving about a week ahead of you from Fort Myers. My preference is across to Stuart and up the AICW with days outside as weather permits. Been doing this trip around the beginning of April for 5 years now. More bad weather than nice days offshore in April.

Ted

Good idea, but that time of year you can’t plan on anything being nice offshore or staying that way for long. I’ve ridden the stream shaving time off the trip and I’ve also wound up in eddies that had me down a few knots and I couldn’t figure out which way to go to catch the stream again.
Being 80 miles offshore isn’t bad until the weather doesn’t cooperate and you spend 8+ hours slogging it out to get close to land.
What I usually do now is set waypoints that have me 20-30 miles off of the entrances to good harbors. Come late afternoon I’ll decide whether we are running overnight Or heading in to dock/anchor somewhere. It’s all depending on the weather, boat condition (what’s broken now or might break), and how the crew is feeling. I take a lot of midday naps if I anticipate an overnight trip.
All good offshore horror stories start with ‘we had a schedule/plane tickets/somewhere to be’!

Welcome aboard. The Defever 47 POC is one of my favorite boats. I looked at one about a year ago in the Chesapeake. Beautiful layout.

Alaskan Sea-Duction said:

Let's see North winds against a south current? That would be fun.........

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Yup, it gets lumpy!

Especially when it really slows you down and you get caught out there is the pitch dark as well!

Ask my wife how I know!

Just a quick comment to those who aren't familiar with the Gulf Stream. Mr. m's video above is quite benign, almost flat calm.

Oh yummy beam seas......

Alaskan Sea-Duction said:

Oh yummy beam seas......

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Can you imagine what it would have been like without the stabilizers!

WOW that was with Stabs? No thanks. Stay in port or go inside. Reminds me of Dixon Entrance.

Here is a plot; happens to be April 1. Might be useful for planning purposes. The current is a bit "indeterminate" past NC. Mixing GS with that up north water...

I just had a dumb funny story.

My pop was running boats up and down during the winter months (boat delivery) during the off season. I got out of college and went on a trip with him (NY to key west)

I was young and full of piss and vinegar and pleaded with him from NY to Carolinas to go the out route. (Regrettably wanted to be out in the going ocean versus the nice ICW). He said the weather was not right, I kept pestering, so he finally consented.

Once we got out, There was a substantial following seas and rain (very heavy at times) and after a few hours the boats autopilot overheated from correcting the following seas pushing us of course constantly. So it was on deck steering from that point on.

I just remember sitting in the rain, for days, steering and hearing my father cursing me from the cabin. I was never so sore from being tossed around for a few days with the weather.

The Chesapeake and Delaware can kick small boat butt too.

The main problem with running continuously, is so does the weather.

psneeld said:

The Chesapeake and Delaware can kick small boat butt too.

The main problem with running continuously, is so does the weather.

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Haaaa! Totally true. I just kept thinking “I am beat to **** and I’m 19 years old”. My pop was over 40 and must have been 2xs as miserable. Lmao.

Alisske wrote, "I just remember sitting in the rain, for days, steering . . . I was never so sore from being tossed around for a few days with the weather."

Been there, doing deliveries. Hours of suffering through a two-person routine of watch-on / watch-off, waiting wakefully for the shouted reminder from up top, "Hey, it's your watch!" That's when my thoughts turned to heated and air-conditioned pilothouse trawler-style yachts, which as established above, still can't assure a restful offshore passage. If I have to cross big water, I make no calendar-related plans and disregard anyone else's deadlines. It's all about waiting for the weather. Unfortunately, delivery crews don't always have that luxury - they get paid to make trips no one else wants to make, for a good reason!