We had a slight scare during the night at anchor in Haverstraw Bay. About 0100 Judy woke me up saying that the anchor alarm was sounding- never a good thing! We usually set an alarm for 150 feet on our handhold GPS when we anchor so we can keep track of our position as the wind and tide changes during the night; it seldom sounds an alarm. We both got up to see what was happening and checked the GPS where the track showed that we were in a different location than we had been earlier and that the boat had moved in a relatively straight line to our current position. I went topside to look at our primary GPS and it confirmed that we had indeed moved about 200 feet from out earlier position.
After some analysis and checking wind direction (it had changed from south to west to north), looking at two other boats in the same area, and confirming via GPS that we weren’t moving backwards, we concluded that the sudden wind shift to the north and the fact that it was blowing about 15 mph had caused Sanderling to move to the south rather rapidly and that with about 100 feet of chain out the move had triggered the alarm.
On Thursday morning in day light we were able to confirm that the anchor had not dragged; we had simply swung around the anchor on the full length of the chain.
We departed the area about 0730 and soon encountered wind gushing to 25 – 30 mph from the northwest. It didn’t create any problems for us, but it was a little rough during the gusts and noisy! It also slowed us down by about a knot, so by 1439 when we reached Kingston and the Rondout River we decided to call it a day (after 55 nautical miles).
We’re currently at a dock at the Hudson River Maritime Museum and have decided to spend an extra night here to wait for the wind on the river to subside a bit before heading further north to Troy. Wind gusts at Troy yesterday reached 45 mph! Tomorrow is forecast to be much calmer. In the meantime we’ll do some grocery shopping and tour the local area by foot. We have access to the museum and the Half Moon (a replica of Henry Hudson’s boat) is docked just ahead of us and is open for tours.
Trip: 1378 NM; 233H15M underway
Pics: West Point, Half Moon
