Summer is over and the colors of fall are either taking over or long gone, depending on what part of the country you’re in. One thing is for certain, it’s much colder where you are right now than a month or two ago. You might find yourself reading about our adventures on Twig with a twinge of jealousy for the wave upon wave of comforting warm weather that we perpetually live in. Because that’s the dream, right? Buy a sailboat and achieve the fabled endless summer. If it gets too cold, just move to someplace warmer!
If you are thinking that, you clearly didn’t fully understand when I talked about the weather. Because of those hurricanes that you read about in the paper (“The paper”. I just aged myself), cruisers (full time boaters) are stuck either in the deep south of the Carribean or north of the Florida Georgia line. Those who chose the south just got a stifling hot summer with tropical storms constantly knocking on their doors. Those, like Twig, that went north migrated to the Chesapeake.
I’m not gonna lie to you, in terms of weather, life on the Chesapeake has been pretty great this summer. Yes, like everywhere else, there were times when it got pretty hot. The jellyfish kept us from swimming to cool off most of the time, but we were able to run the AC most of the time. I mean, we’re not savages… boating is glamping on the water after all. One thing that we did notice during those times was that the delicious cool air from the AC disappeared immediately. There are huge gaps of air in the sliding door that suck the comfort right out, and the thin walls do little to help.
You: Cry me a river Greg, you live on a boat.
Me: Yup, you’re right my friend. It’s pretty great. Not gonna lie.
Then fall happened. Just like where you rest your head, it got colder in the Chesapeake. We ache to move south, but are stuck because of hurricane season. Each time a new storm appears on the radar, it’s acts like a little cattle dog nipping at the herd to keep all of the boats stuck up north. So we’re sitting here watching the thermometer drop waiting to head south.
This is where the daydream is biting us in our frozen little tushies. The dream was to sail in the islands. That’s what we always planned on, and that’s certainly what we packed for. Unprepared for the change of the season, we stocked up on hoodies in Annapolis, and have been making soup almost every day. So how cold is it? Well it’s about 50 degrees when we wake up.
I just lost you didn’t I? I’m complaining about 50 degrees. I’ve clearly gone soft in the head (as well as the midsection). Well, you forgot about the Boat Chill Factor.
The what? You made that up!
Yes I did. But that doesn’t make it less true.
You’ve heard the lines before:
“It’s hot, but at least it’s a dry heat”
“It’s 50, but with the wind, it feels like 30”
“The humidity is making the heat unbearable”
There is a seemingly endless list of factors that we add to (or subtract from) the current temperature to describe what it actually feels like. Weather channels even publish a separate “feels like” number on the weather page. So, why not add one more to the list?
The boat chill factor is a plus or minus of 15 degrees of temperature, applied to the current “feels like” temperature. This is comprised of various sub factors, including the breeze quotient, the gap multiplier, the glare gradient, and the need for boaters to give a name to everything.
In the summer, it goes like this: it’s 85 degrees out, but it feels like 92 because of the humidity. On the boat, the sun is glaring into our windows, which are primarily on the ceiling. If we open them, only a portion of any breeze gets funneled down. There are gaps in the doors letting any cool air that we create with the AC out, and we don’t want to run the AC because it eats up the electricity. So, I rarely wear a shirt and we keep a cooler full of ice water at the ready. So, it feels like 102.
In the fall/winter, it is more like this: it’s 50 degrees outside, but on the boat it feels like 30. Not only do we only have two pairs of socks each, but the thin walls of the boat make it feel more like a tent than a home. The cold gets in our bones, and we are constantly sipping coffee and hot chocolate. That, plus the attitude. Our daydreams (like yours) have us down in the Bahamas, so the temp just plain feels colder.
Soon we’ll round Cape Hatteras (likely next week) and be back in the Carolinas. My sister lives there, and reports that the temp isn’t much better there right now…but it’s one step closer. Daydreams of rum punch at beach bars are within grasp as the hurricane season winds down and we can head back to the islands.
we rounded Cape H last year around November 10 th. It was chilly. We spent a very cold December in Georgia. Luckily at a dock so we could plug in the heater. Water lines on the dock froze at Christmas. Getting a boat to heat up to tolerable inside had ‘con-damn-sation dripping down the walls. Not pleasant. But life got better the further south we went. Maybe we will see you in the Bahamas. Fellow TRU’s Karen and Dave on Here and Now