FIRST POST -- BACKGROUND INFO

                                    FIRST POST -- BACKGROUND INFO

OUR QUEST

To take Craunological II up the East Coast --safely and happily -- all the way to the Canadian border at Eastport, Maine.

OUR VESSEL

Craunological II is a Ranger Tug 31-CB of a traditional design sometimes called a pocket trawler. She was built in the Seattle area in the fall of 2021. She left the factory November 29th, delivered to the dealer in Ft. Meyers on December 13th, and we picked her up at the dealer on January 2nd. Her hull dimensions are 31' length, 10' beam and 2.5' draft. Overall length with the anchor pulpit and swim platform is 35'. Height is 18'2" with the mast up and 10'3" with it down. Dry weight is 12,500 pounds, but with full tanks and gear she probably weighs more like 15,500 pounds. Hull, decks and cabin exterior are all fiberglass.

Power is by a single 320 hp Volvo-Penta diesel. Her top speed is 21 mph and cruising speed is 16-18 mph depending on wind and seas. Fuel consumption at cruising speed is about 1.4 mpg, while at 6 mph it's about 6 mpg. With a semi-displacement hull, her fuel consumption is pretty much directly proportional to speed. Fuel tank capacity is 180 gallons, so we've got a cruising range of 200 miles at speed and three times that if we just putter along at 9-10 mph.

The main cabin is 8' by 10.5', the front cabin (aka "captain's stateroom") is about the same square footage but semi-circular in shape, and the head is about 10 square feet. The covered aft cockpit is 8' by 8.5' and the upper deck (where we spend a lot of time if the weather is nice) is 7' by 10'. There's a guest bunk tucked under the dinette that we'll use for storage on our trip that is 6' by 4' but with only 4' of headroom in the front third and 2' in the back two-thirds. There is enough space for two people to live aboard, but it's cozy. The interior layout is very thoughtful and nicely appointed. The boat is fully equipped with a 4 cubic foot refrigerator, wine cooler, icemaker, LPG-fired oven and range, microwave, hot water heater, air conditioning or heat in each cabin, two heads, and a shower. The boat also has an inflatable dinghy attached to the swim platform at the stern (factory supplied) and a 3 hp electric motor for the dinghy (that we purchased) which is lightweight and easy to store and use.

OUR CRUISING PLAN

We will head a short way up the coast from our dock at Wiggins Pass to the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River, then go up the Caloosahatchee to the Okeechobee Waterway, which crosses Florida and comes out at St. Lucie on the east coast. We'll then take the Intracoastal Waterway from St. Lucie up to Norfolk VA, run up Chesapeake Bay to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, take the C&D canal over to Delaware Bay, run down Delaware Bay to Cape May, then run up the coast of New Jersey to NYC. The total distance is about 1,575 miles -- 170 miles to the Intracoastal Waterway at St. Lucie, 988 miles from St. Lucie to Norfolk, and 415 miles from Norfolk to NYC. We will leave on May 23rd and want to arrive in NYC on June 29th (so that we can drive with our son and his family up to the Berkshires, where we are all -- including our daughter and her family -- renting a house July 2-9). This should give us plenty of time for sightseeing, staying ashore now and then, and cushion for bad weather. We'll leave Craunological II at a marina in NYC for the month of July while we do our thing in the Berkshires and then visit family and friends back in Indianapolis and NE Ohio. 

We will reunite with Craunological II sometime in early August, then take her out Long Island Sound and along the coast to Buzzards Bay, take the Cape Cod Canal into Massachusetts Bay, and run along the coast up to Maine. We need to be at MacMahan Island by August 14th, when we start our rental for the same cottage that we've rented for over ten years. When our rental finishes on the 21st we'll run up the coast to Eastport, wave hello to Canada, and then turn around and head back to Boston, where we will leave the boat for the month of September while we go off and do some more land traveling. It is about 400 miles from NYC to MacMahan, 175 miles from MacMahan to Eastport, and 330 miles from Eastport back to Boston. That gives 905 miles for the second half of the trip.

Our current plan is to hire someone to put the boat on a truck and drive it back to Naples and fly down to meet her there, but if we have just too much fun we might decide to run her back down the coast ourselves!