The Southbound Journey: July 18, 2009
by Captain Samantha Heyman

It almost never happens. You never get the wind blowing in exactly the direction you want it to. Sailors are superstitious and Murphy's Law abounds: If you want to go south, that's exactly where the wind will come from, and no sailing vessel can sail directly into the wind.

But on Saturday, July 18, on a southbound charter from Beacon to Garrison, Osborn's Law trumped Murphy's Law, and the wind, instead of being on the nose, was sweetly on the starboard quarter. Fred and Annie Osborn played host to a group from both the Garrison Yacht Club and the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival and with them they brought sunshine, scarcely seen in the previous weeks, and a steady northwesterly wind. After a little fishing, we set full sail off Denning Island and sheeted out the mainsail, topsail and jib for a smooth broad reach down Newburgh Bay.


Once well underway, guests and crew were treated to another delicious spread for brunch, catered by our cook Julie Edwards, and we enjoyed our homemade scones and muffins in the shadow of Bannerman's Island. The moment of silence, a Clearwater tradition, this time under the precipice of the storied Storm King Mountain, was profound. It took three flying gybes (officially known as the Hudson River Gybe) to get around the two 90 degree turns at Magazine Point and World's End, but any day you can thread that needle under sail instead of diesel is a great day.

Unfortunately, the rounding of World's End meant it was time to strike sail. Crew and guests assisted, though all of us were reluctant to break the spell. But Annie's cookout was waiting ashore, so at a quick stop at the Garrison Yacht Club we bade farewell to our new friends and carried on towards the city.

A twisting, fluky wind in the highlands—not an unusual occurrence—kept my sails down past Bear Mountain, but the breeze settled in again from the northwest at Peekskill Bay and up went the canvas again: main, jib and topsail. We found our broad reach, starboard tack, off Randy King's Marina at Verplanck and rode it all afternoon, all the way past the Tappan Zee Bridge.

Dusk off Piermont brought the first unexpected visitor of the evening as we traded brief tacks with the northbound replica sailing ship Half Moon. Shortly thereafter an unexpected radio call yielded an invitation to raft up with our Delaware Bay counterpart, the Schooner AJ Meerwald, at Alpine Boat Basin.

The Schooner AJ Meerwald Photo courtesy of Bayshore Discovery Project website

So we struck sail and headed over to New Jersey and tied up alongside our friends to swap some stories and get a good night’s sleep at the foot of the Palisades. We woke to a clear morning with a gentle northwesterly breeze and I decided to finish our southbound trip to the city the old fashioned way—under sail, with the ebb current nudging us along. I took the opportunity to lighten our load by inviting — some might call it shanghai-ing — several crewmembers from the AJ Meerwald to sail with us and, in record time, full sail was set, and we were again broad reaching south. Just north of Spuyten Duyvil the tender to the Schooner came to retrieve its crew, and we said goodbye to our temporary shipmates as they scrambled over the rail into their small inflatable boat.

The journey came to a close striking sail right off the West 79th Street Boat Basin and pulling alongside just in time for our midday charter. The crew welcomed our new passengers with satisfaction, wistfully recalling the previous day’s voyage and ready for the next job.
 

---

Wondering what the heck Captain Samantha is saying? Check out Gybe Talking, Clearwater's dictionary of sailor vocabulary.