I am a relative newbie and also pretty new to SN, so I may well be speaking out of turn here, but I would say that Tager has a point. Bubb2, I don't disagree with the content of your message, but think that Tager may lose the message for the delivery. You may think that you are doing him a favor by being blunt, but you may also simply make it easier to dismiss your points.
Tager, as a bit of background on myself, I grew up sailing the bays on the coast of Maine. I have described myself on other SN posts as a relative newbie with minimal offshore experience, but what little expereince I have is of the variety you don't want. When I graduated college, I went to work in Beijing where I met a New Zealand couple. We started talking sailing and I puffed up my experience over a couple beers. They invited me down to NZ to participate in a race from Auckland to Tonga which I took them up on. I figured I'd sailed from NY to Maine before and it couldn't be that much different, right? You don't hear about this race much, and I can find very little on the internet about it, but here is one article about the race I participated in:
Daring rescue made headlines round the world - National - NZ Herald News
I got unlucky with the weather, but very lucky in the seaworthiness of the boat, the experience of the captain and his preparations. I am no salt. There are people who know a lot more than I do around here. But I probably know enough to say that you wouldn't need to get half as unlucky with the weather as I did to find yourself in serious trouble if you went out equipped as you suggest (and don't kid yourself that it would be your luck that you're trusting to). Don't skimp on
rigging because you think you'll never need it. Don't assume that you won't need the best communication equipment. Don't think you won't need a
life raft and that a
dinghy will do. In short, don't trust to your luck - prepare for the extreme - then trust to your luck. I know nothing about offshore sailing, except that if your luck turns, you got nowhere to go.