We raise sails and we can sail about 60 degrees TOWARDS the wind direction. But land is just off our right as we leave the inlet, so we have to sail to the left (port tack) of the wind. We know that AT BEST we can turn across the wind (called a tack) and head approximately 120-130 degrees from our current heading. Usually you get a little slip if there's a current or strong winds, so you might not even make that if you can't get the nose around and sails filled quick enough. So we are basically sailing away from land, but away from our destination! You can eyeball the compass and guesstimate where you'll be heading when you tack, so you keep heading AWAY until you can tack back towards land and make some 'distance made good' (actually go farther than where you started). BUT- there's this thing called the Gulf Stream. It runs offshore and is one of the great ocean currents that circulate water all over the world. By Palm Beach the Gulf Stream comes as close as 1 nm to shore and runs north at an incredible 3kn. Consider that an average sailboat can sail around 6kn/hr- we plan for 4kn. If you are fighting a 3kn current you are, at best, making 3kn towards your destination. At worst you are travelling at 1kn (or worse directly into the Stream. As we sail farther and farther away from land, the Gulf Stream plays a bigger and bigger role in our heading and speed. By the time we went out far enough that we could tack and make some forward headway towards land- the Gulf Stream was 'drifting' us off our course. As a result, the boat was making the correct heading, but our actual track was very different. After one tack, by the time we were back close to shore we actually LOST GROUND! We could stay closer to shore where the Gulf Stream isn't as strong, but that would mean LOT'S and LOT'S of short tacks. I can't imagine doing that all night long. So we dropped the headsail (a genoa in this case) and motorsailed. A parallel course to land, about .7 nm offshore put us about 30-45 degrees of the wind. That meant we ...
| Website | http://www.jcmcdowell.com |
| Revenue | $1.6 million |
| Employees | View employees |
| Address | 610 N 1st St Ste 5-228, Hamilton, Montana 59840, US |
| Industry | Hospitality General, Hospitality |
| Competitors | Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Honeywell, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris Technologies, Raytheon Co., General Dynamics, Saab, Textron, Alion Science and Technology +39 more (view full list) |
| SIC | SIC Code 79 Companies, SIC Code 6531 Companies, SIC Code 65 Companies, SIC Code 653 Companies, SIC Code 792 Companies |
| NAICS | NAICS Code 71 Companies, NAICS Code 711 Companies |
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JC McDowell Questions
The JC McDowell annual revenue was $1.6 million in 2026.
JC McDowell is based in Hamilton, Montana.
The NAICS codes for JC McDowell are [71, 711].
The SIC codes for JC McDowell are [79, 6531, 65, 653, 792].
