Tartan 30 to Virgin Islands?

[Chessie]

My girlfriend and I (along with our labrador retriever) are planning on taking off this upcoming winter (2011-2012) living aboard my tartan 30. We will be leaving the Chesapeake Bay after hurricane season, and ending up in the Virgin islands, hopefully. The boat is in great shape and amongst other things, I am planning on replacing the Atomic 4 with a diesel engine. Has anyone made this trip before on a Tartan 30 with 2 people and a dog? Any specific advice on this would be really helpful.

What we want to know is if you have done this trip on a T 30 or a similar boat, what would you have done differently?

[callmecrazy]

Hi Chessie

If you are not already a member, I'd recommend joining the tartan owners mailing list on yahoo. After asking around there (they are active and I'm sure will provide plenty of good info), I'd also highly recommend joining the chesapeake tartan 30 association (not sure if thats actually active or not) and obtaining a copy of the T30 "Owners Manual". This book has extensive information about cruising in a T30, everything from sail trim, heavy weather tactics, anchoring etc.. to how to keep the bugs out, and how to light the stove, and everything else in between (although I don't recall anything about cruising with a labrador ). There's also quite a few stories about cruising, including a few in the Caribbean and Bermuda. I haven't even really begun to wade through the mass of information in this book.
There's also the info on the CT30A website, have a read through the cruising tips and other pages (if you haven't already).