Florida to Chesapeake / New York offshore

[vansicw]

I have to move my Morgan 38 from Florida to the Great Lakes and have an 8 - week window at the end of April through to the end of June. It has been suggested that I go offshore for the southern part of the trip and take advantage of the Gulf Stream. I would appreciate advice and suggestions from others who have made this trip.

[Hud3]

I made a trip from the Abacos to the Chesapeake Bay in mid-May, 2005. We entered the Gulf Stream off Cape Canaveral and rode it all the way to Cape Hatteras. We had a 3 kt boost most of the way, and even up to 4 kts for a while.

I had a weather routing service giving me daily updates via SSB email. You can get some pretty vicious fronts coming through that time of the year, but we had a very calm trip. Prior to leaving, I downloaded Lat/Lon coordinates of the northern edge of the Stream and plotted them on my route planning software so we could stay in the current near the northern boundary. If things got too hairy, my plan was to get out of the stream and head for an inlet on the coast.

Weather in and southeast of the Stream can be challenging, so I highly recommend having professional weather routing assistance, unless you're very good at understanding the weather on your own.