Man-O-War - Manasquan Passage
Man-O-War Cay, 20 May 2009
I'm planning to crew on Baltic Breeze, a 38' sailing catamaran, from Man-O-War Cay to Manasquan Inlet, NJ.  We're planning to leave on Friday (depending on weather, etc).
 
Here is Baltic Breeze, an Athena 38, at the dock at Edwins #2 Boatyard on Man-O-War Cay.  
 
Sunset at Man-O-War.  
 
22 May 2009
We'll probably be leaving this afternoon.
 
BTW, here is a link to the NOAA Offshore Marine Forecasts page (click on a zone for the weather for that zone).
 
Here is a map with the latitudes/longitudes better marked.
A direct course from Man-O-War to Manasquan is shown. 		 
 
Here is the typical location of the Gulf Stream for this time of year.  We'll want to get into the Gulf Stream as soon as possible to boost our speed.  It depends on the wind and wave conditions.  
30 May 2009
We got back on Thursday.  The weather and wind were favorable and we had a pretty good passage.  We were visited by dolphins three mornings and saw some whales breaching off in the distance one day.  Below is a plot of the course we took.  I've plotted the SOG (Speed Over Ground) and SMG (Speed Made Good towards the final destination) using the 12-hour position reports (shown with the red "balloons" on the map).  So those are 12-hour averages shown in the plot.
 
 
Here is out track overlayed on an old plot of the Gulf Stream (from here). The Gulf Stream plot is from April 2003 so I don't know how relevant it is.
 
We chose to turn north from the Bahamas where we did because the wind was very favorable at that point (15-20 knots from the east as I recall) and we figured we would take advantage of it while we could. 		 

Photos from Henry
 
FIN
 

Misc references:
   - This looks like a pretty good writeup regarding Spot.