Chesapeake Bay to Long Island Sound

[Galene]

Within the next week or so we plan to take our new-to-us Albin 28 TE from Rock Hall, on the Chesapeake Bay, to her new home. Have any of you done this cruise, and do you have any pointers?
We plan to meet up with friends in Baltimore and then go through the C & D Canal, down the Delaware Bay, through the Cape May Canal, up the coast of NJ, through NY Harbor, up the East River, and home to Branford, stopping occasionally for fuel or sleep. How long is this likely to take? Are there any particular marinas you'd recommend or avoid?
We have always been sailors so I have no idea what it will be like cruising in a power boat.

[Nepidae]

In October of 2010 we purchased our 43 in CT and took her to Philly over the Columbus weekend.

We left CT around 1400h and immediately ran into a squall. High winds and 4-5 at a good interval on the nose that gave an actual good ride. The amazing thing was to see the hause holes in the bow look like runaway fire hoses when the bow went into the water.

We went from the CT River to Clinton CT, about 10 miles that day. Doing 100 mile days we pulled into Philly on Monday at 2000h.

We used to keep our boat on the Chesapeake on Worton Creek. Leaving the marina and getting to Philly was an 8hr day.

For us we need to travel south out of Rock Hall to get past the flats, you probably don't need to worry about that. It's about 15 miles that way from Rock Hall to Worton Creek.

We travel at about 8kts.

You might be able to extrapolate to get an idea. Not sure what speed you will be traveling.

Hope this helps.

[Pitou]

As far as time from A to B the best way to calculate that is to get out your chart and walk it with a set of dividers and parallel rules to calculate the distance, plot waypoints and then divide by your expected travel speeds accounting for no wake areas as well as cruising. This is an easy exercise that will help you with estimating a pretty accurate float plan. Enjoy your trip.

[Jay Knoll]

"We have always been sailors so I have no idea what it will be like cruising in a power boat."

• you'll be able to go from point a to point b in a straight line
  
  you won't be as comfortable in a beam sea as you would be in a sailboat
  
  you'll probably go faster!
  
  you won't have to worry about so many bridge clearances
  
  you won't

be as affected by current as when you're in a sailboat (but I would still check especially in Delaware Bay and thru Hell's Gate)

Enjoy the trip!

Jay

[Dudley]

fuel up at sandy hook, NJ. I did the trrip in 2011. here is my article with pictures.

sf260w.com/Trip2011

[Galene]

A belated thanks to all of you for your advice. We had a lovely trip, getting to know the boat, and did not hurry. We took 7 days, leaving Annapolis for Baltimore to pick up friends, then stopping at a marina on the Eastern Shore, at the marina along the C&D Canal just before Delaware. The dreaded Delaware Bay turned out to be so easy as to be boring, with the current with us and little wind. Then we stopped in Cape May, and Atlantic City with our friends. At that point we had small craft warnings so we left the boat in Atlantic City and our friends went home. When the weather improved we continued with just the 2 of us (yes, it had been a bit crowded with 4!), and stopped on the Manisquan river, then Port Washington (Long Island), and home to Branford CT. We were making about 10+ kts at 2200rpm. I haven't figured out how to get the most out of the trim tabs yet. We love the boat!