Why the Atlantic in February?
Charlie is a great fan of Don Street who, next time he runs into Charlie will put him over his knee.
Not so very many years ago, we were all discussing the fate of two, maybe three, catamarans built at TPI in Rhode Island and being delivered to a charter company in the VI IN WINTER. Never did get the full story, but one crew was rescued and came back to deliver another. Clint Pearson gave them an EPIRB to make the passage safer.
We have, on the East Coast, an Intracoastal Waterway that boats, especially shoal-draft multihulls, can take as far south as they want to avoid nasty winter weather in the Atlantic. Yes, it might take a little longer . . . but this delivery ended up taking . . . forever.
Oh, and another thing . . . a shakedown cruise? Is than no longer in the vocabulary? A prototype boat? I think a quick sprint down the Jersey shore -- maybe even the length of the Delmarva -- would have been in order, then duck into the ICW.