Landfall Lady Liberty

July 2023

By Mark Barrett

In Part 3, Mark and Diana sailed to the Larchmont Yacht Club, in Mamaroneck, N.Y., which would be this cruising couple’s equivalent of Mount Everest Base Camp, but their challenge wasn’t at 29,000 feet but at sea level, running the storied Hell Gate currents into the lower East River.

Diana had figured out the timing of the Hell Gate currents on her Deep Zoom app the night before and realized we needed to get an early start if we wanted to reach Hell Gate at a favorable time. For once in her cruising life, she was not lobbying to go ashore for a sit-down breakfast at a restaurant she’d researched on Yelp. We dropped the mooring at the Larchmont Yacht Club at 7:45 a.m. and headed into Long Island Sound.

A steady breeze blew out of the west-southwest at 10 to 15 knots, so we were able to sail close-hauled on one tack all the way across Long Island Sound to the Throgs Neck Bridge, a distance of eight miles. It was 9:15 a.m. when we started the engine, dropped the sails, and headed up into the East River.

We were expecting to share the river with big ships, but there were none. The wind funneled down the river in direct opposition to the current, so there was a heavy chop, but Mojo’s trusty 2-cylinder Yanmar diesel and the following current pushed us right through it. We took the narrow channel that went between North Brother and South Brother islands. By the time we were adjacent to Rikers Island, home to a grim-looking prison, our speed over the ground was reading 8.5 knots on the GPS.

Diana and I were used to planning trips in our home cruising grounds according to the currents in the Cape Cod Canal or Woods Hole. But Hell Gate was an unknown, and it was nerve-wracking getting swept toward it with a following current that was too strong to turn back against. Our fear probably had something to do with the name of the passage. If it was named Heaven Gate, we probably would not have been so nervous.

The Triboro Bridge crossed the East River right before Hell Gate. With a vertical clearance of 143 feet, it dwarfed Mojo’s mast, which stands only 47 feet above the water, and served to remind us just how small she was. The current was ripping at that point. As we entered Hell Gate, the GPS showed that we were moving at 9.8 knots over the ground.

The passage through was surprisingly uneventful. There were no big ships to crowd us, and we were moving so fast that we were through Hell Gate in a matter of minutes. It was much less stressful than passing through Woods Hole at peak current. Soon we were staring up in awe at the magnificent skyscrapers of Midtown Manhattan as cars zoomed past us on FDR Drive, only a stone’s throw off our starboard side. The United Nations building looked different from the water side because the flags you normally see from the front weren’t visible.

There was a surprising lack of boat traffic, and we had the river all to ourselves as we zipped past Midtown with the current pushing us. That changed drastically as we shot out of the river and into New York Harbor. Vessels were all over the place: water taxis and ferry boats crossing back and forth, and barges and huge freighters and tankers moving slowly or lying at anchor.

The wind was strong and gusty, and the sea state confused and choppy. In the distance, on the other side of the harbor – green-tinted and unmistakable, but smaller than I expected – was what we had sailed all this way to see: the Statue of Liberty.

We pointed Mojo’s bow right at her.

“What’s the plan?” Diana asked. “Where do we land?”

“I don’t know exactly.”

“What do you mean, ‘you don’t know exactly’?”

Unfortunately, I had not made a plan for landing and visiting the statue. Now that we were in New York Harbor, which was as rough as a giant washing machine – wind-driven chop mixing with wakes from large ferries and water taxis coming at us from all angles – all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there as soon as possible. Diana pulled out her phone and started Googling.

“Jeez, you need to get tickets months in advance to be able to go up in it,” she said. “Did you know that?”

“That never occurred to me,” I said. “I figured we’d have to wait in line to go up inside, maybe. I guess we’ll try to go over there once we get to Staten Island. Maybe we can take an Uber or something.”

“Did you hear what I said? You need tickets and reservations. It’s all booked up for weeks!” Diana barked. “That’s just freaking typical planning on your part.”

“Can we please get out of here now?” I countered. “We still have about 14 miles to go to get to Great Kills Harbor on Staten Island. Get ready to roll out the jib. We’ll be on a beam reach. We’re not going to bother with the main, it’s so damn windy.”

“Wait a second,” she said. “We need to get some pictures! Go over there right next to the statue.”

“Oh, all right, all right.”

Naturally, the first five of six selfies we took, with the statue behind us, were not good enough, so we made multiple passes back and forth in front of the iconic statue. There were a dozen tour boats full of weekend tourists doing the exact thing we were doing. We finally got a picture in which the statue was centered perfectly between us – and with Diana’s hair in a satisfactory state, no easy feat in those rough, windy conditions.

Once we had the picture, we rolled out the jib, killed the engine, and pointed Mojo toward the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. With just the 100-percent working jib pulling us, we sailed at 7.5 knots through the Narrows, Brooklyn to port and Staten Island to starboard. I was not confident enough to cut inside Hoffman Island, so we kept on a southeasterly course until we got past it and around Swinburne Island. Then we headed southwest.

When we turned, the wind was right on our nose. We had a choice at this point: raise the main, tie in a reef, and tack our way upwind for the last four or five miles, or roll up the jib and motor straight into a three-foot chop. We chose the second option, figuring it would be faster.

Due to the strong opposing wind and relentless wave action, we could only make 3.5 knots of headway, even at 3,000 rpm. It was agonizing and uncomfortable slamming straight into heavy chop in a light sailboat like Mojo. The alternative was to sail close-hauled at a much faster speed – probably six knots – but cover a much greater distance by tacking back and forth. But first, we’d struggle to get the mainsail up and tie in a reef in the rough conditions. And since we were only an hour and change out from our destination, would it be worth raising the sails?

Such decisions depend a lot on the characteristics of your boat. After that uncomfortable jaunt toward Staten Island under power, we decided to sail. It’s almost always worth the extra work to raise the mainsail and tie in a reef rather than take that straight-into-the-waves pounding.

Great Kills Harbor on Staten Island is home to several marinas. We pulled up to the fuel dock at Staten Island Yacht Sales and took on three gallons of diesel. After calling around, Diana found that the best deal for dockage was at Mansion Marina, a short distance down the shoreline. The rate for a slip for the night was only $2 per foot. As soon as we got the boat tied up and secured in the slip, we walked up to The Tiki Bar and had two drinks on the outdoor deck.

Back at the marina, we took showers, which were ice-cold, but there was something about this little boatyard that I really liked. The slips were filled with small, well-cared-for powerboats – no fancy yachts that I could see. The single, one-story marina building was dwarfed by the large structure of the newer marina next door. The row of marinas bordered a blue-collar neighborhood. The street running parallel to the waterfront, between the marinas and the neighborhood, was named Mansion Avenue. It felt like there was a lot of history around there.

After invigorating showers, we walked up the street to Cole’s Dockside Restaurant, which Diana had checked out on Yelp. It was an Italian-style seafood place that got great reviews. We lucked out and got two seats at the bar, which we always prefer. I think both of us, after being together 24/7 on a small sailboat, relished the chance to talk to anybody besides each other, like a bartender or locals. The great reviews were well-deserved.

Toward the end of dinner, we got into an argument, the topic being how bad I was at planning things, like going up in the Statue of Liberty. Maybe we were both tired from the long, stressful day of passing through Hell Gate and New York Harbor, followed by the pounding we took to get to Great Kills. “I’m going back to the boat,” Diana said, sliding off her barstool in a huff and storming out of the restaurant.

I knew from experience that Diana’s bad moods were like passing squalls, and if I just hunkered down and stayed out of the weather for a while, this one would blow over like all the others. Then the sun would come out again, and everybody would be happy. But when I got back to the boat, she wasn’t there. I tried calling her on her cell phone, but got no answer. If she was trying to worry me, it was working. I walked back up to the top of the ramp and looked around the boatyard, but she was nowhere in sight. I went back to Mojo and tried calling her again. It went right to voicemail. I was about to go look for her again when I felt the boat tip slightly, and there she was in the companionway.

“Where the hell did you go?” I asked. “You don’t want to be wandering around here at night.”

“I went for a nice, long walk down past those other marinas,” she said. “There are a lot of big yachts down there. This one guy saw me walking by, and we talked for a while. He’s from Mystic. He invited me on board for a drink.”

Long pause.

“Well, did you go?” I asked.

“Nah, I didn’t go. It was tempting, though. He had a big yacht.”

I got the point.

One of Diana’s best qualities is that she always wakes up in the morning in a good mood, and the morning of August 11, 2019 in Mansion’s Marina on Staten Island was no exception. She seemed to have completely forgotten about our argument from the night before, after which she wandered off to another marina and almost left me and Mojo for another man on a bigger boat.

We were in no real hurry to shove off that morning because there would not be a favorable tide for us to get back through Hell Gate until later in the afternoon. For once we had plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast. But, alas, Diana was unable to Yelp any four or five-star restaurants close by, so the Dunkin’ Donuts up the street had to suffice. The coffee and toasted bagels were as reliable as ever, but not exactly worthy of a review.

We pulled out of the slip at 9:30 a.m. There was a very light breeze in what the chart denoted as the Lower Bay, so we kept the sail cover on and motored back toward the Verrazano-Narrows bridge. The current was against us so we could only make about 3.5 kts. As we neared the bridge, we were approached from the stern by a gang of six jet skis flying along at what had to be around 40 kts. They roared past us close by on both sides like the “smokers” in that Kevin Costner classic “Waterworld.”

New York Harbor was bustling with boat traffic even though it was a Sunday. We had time to kill before the current would be in our favor in the East River, so we took off the sail cover, raised the main, rolled out the jib, and sailed back and forth across the harbor for an hour or so. Diana was able to get many selfies with the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline in the background.

The sailing was not great because the wind was light and fluky and the harbor was sloppy with colliding boat wakes. We decided to pull into Liberty Landing Marina on the Jersey side to wait out the current change in the East River. There was a restaurant there called the Liberty House, and when we told the pleasant woman who was working the docks that we were going there she gave us a complimentary slip for two hours. Perfect! Diana had the house specialty drink, which was Rose Sangria, and I had my usual Tito’s and soda. The view from our seats of the Manhattan skyline was nothing less than spectacular.

When the time was right later in the afternoon we pulled out of the slip and motored around the tip of Manhattan to the entrance of the East River. This time we were able to take in the sights along the river under much less stress. The current was at its peak, and we hit 11.5 kts. over the ground as we passed through Hell Gate, a new speed record for Mojo. Once again there was virtually no boat traffic in the river, commercial or otherwise.

It was about 5:30 p.m. when we passed under the Throgs Neck Bridge and turned to the north to head out into Long Island Sound.

We were officially headed for home.

Mark Barrett started at the bottom of the boating industry – literally – scraping, washing and painting the bottoms on all sorts of vessels. He currently works as a yacht broker for Cape Yachts in Dartmouth, Mass., and he lives in Sandwich, Mass., as does Diana. These days, they sail their 1988 Freedom 30 Scout out of Red Brook Harbor in Buzzards Bay.

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