My husband and I traveled in our small sailboat down the East River (from Long Island sound to NY Harbor) as one of our first, very exciting, white knuckle experiences traveling from CT to FL. As a novice, I was schooled by my husband, a life-long sailor, about the dangers present when navigating in the East River. What my captain (husband) continually stressed is that we had to enter the river at a very specific calculated moment from City Island so the we would be riding the just-changing tide out from Hell Gate and points south into NY Harbor. The East River is notorious for having a very strong current and requires precise timing to navigate safely. In the forefront of our minds during our entire 3-hour trip down the East River was: what do we do if the engine fails?
There are many articles and plenty of discussion that occurs among mariners regarding the topic:
https://www.offshoreblue.com/cruise/east-river-planning.php]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_Gate]
The ship departed 2.5 hours after low tide, approaching peak flood. That means that any malfunction would send the ship - nominally 300 feet long - northeast bound into the bridge, which is literally less than 1000 from the pier from which they departed. To enhance the dramatic effect, the keels, no doubt a full keel, would have been perpendicular to the full force of the flood tide when they backed out. With no power and no sails, they had no hope of stopping the ship.
Brooklyn Bridge tides for May 17th, the sunrise is 5:36am-8:08pm and the tide times are L 6:14am 0'6" H 12:47pm 3'9" L 5:51pm 1'1
My first question upon hearing of this mishap was why did the leave during peak flood tide?
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