It’s the middle of January — the phrases ‘Small Craft Advisory’ and ‘Gale Warning’ are part of today’s NOAA forecast. Looking out past the Statue of Liberty, I see whitecaps blowing off the wave’s crests and New York Harbor appears to boil. I’ve been wanting to put the foul weather gear through its paces so we gear up to face the choppy water. The kits consist of Henri Lloyd TP2 pants, Tretorn Skerry boots, Musto HPX jackets, Mustang PDFs with FastFind PLB & Icom VHF plus Gill offshore gloves and FOX motocross goggles. After turning on the GoPro I set course for The Narrows running at 20 knots and 30 degrees to the wind and waves. Good amounts of water are flying across the deck and the boat’s handling is unaffected by the conditions due to its deep V-hull.

The ‘Heavy Weather Operations Reference Manual’ reads: ‘Wind itself up to 70 mph has little dangerous effect on the RIB (unless airborne)’. After forty-five adventurous minutes, we’re still dry and warm and return to the dock with a new level of respect for choppy harbor waves.