Having a close encounter with tropical storm Chantal wasn’t all bad. In her wake she left a strong and steady southeasterly flow of wind in the mid 20’s across the ocean This was exactly what we needed to make good time north to New York.

For a couple of years now, we have been using Saillogger as our online tracking tool. It’s a bit geeky to set up, but many boats have the hardware already in place, so it’s an inexpensive install compared to some alternatives. If you’re interested, drop me a line, and I can discuss further. One of the features is a daily email while you are underway that gives you your statistics for the last 24 hours.

For most medium-sized cruising boats, a 24-hour run of 140 to 150 miles is about average. Everybody likes to think their boat can go faster, but we tend to remember the fast days and dismiss the slow ones. The “magic number” that everybody hopes to get to is a 24-hour run of 200 miles. Two-hundred-mile days are rare but not unheard of aboard Harmonie. Our first day out of Fort Lauderdale, we did 211.

But yesterday….

We have never had a 250-mile day, so covering 264 miles in 24 hours is quite likely the fastest we will ever cover ground on this boat.

Of course, we could never cover ground that fast without the help of the Gulf Stream pushing at speeds of 4 knots or more. Well, now it is time to step off that conveyor belt and head in toward NY Harbor. We will be arriving tomorrow in the afternoon and likely anchoring unless we are very lucky with our timing of the tides.