New London, Connecticut · Fishers Island Sound & the East End · 41°21.2′N 72°05.5′W · VHF Ch 09
Holding at New London Harbor is rated good, over a mud bottom. Set well and check your swing before you trust it.
New London Harbor is well sheltered from north, northeast, west, northwest winds. Check the wind-protection rose above for every direction.
New London Harbor is primarily a mooring or dockage harbor — ~$40 / night (city transient mooring), with little or no room to anchor free.
Hail on VHF Ch 09 (New London dock master Ch 09).
Reserve or hail — City transient moorings — hail the dock master on Ch 09. It fills on summer weekends.
New London is a deep, all-weather harbor of refuge at the mouth of the Thames — the Coast Pilot notes deep-draft vessels can anchor here in any weather, any season, which is exactly why you'd stop.
Take a city transient mooring near the south end (hail the dock master on Ch 09) for a walk into a real downtown, or tuck into the dredged Shaw Cove basin for the most shelter from the constant wake. Holding is good in soft mud; the challenge here is traffic and wakes, not the bottom. Fuel, provisions and the ferries to Block Island and Orient are all right at hand.
Hazards & cautions. This is a busy commercial waterway — Cross Sound ferries, the Coast Guard Academy and Groton-base submarines transit constantly with heavy wakes and active security zones. The approach is fringed by rocky ledges (New London Ledge, Black Ledge, Sarah Ledge); hold the channel and expect wake, not calm.
NOAA Coast Pilot calls New London an important harbor of refuge where vessels of deep draft can find anchorage in any weather and at all seasons; federal special anchorages lie in Greens Harbor and near the Coast Guard Academy.
No cruiser reports yet. If you've anchored here, be the first — your note helps the next boat in.
Augusto ratings and editorial are our own synthesis of public-domain sources and cruiser reports. Always verify against current charts and local knowledge before you rely on them.