BruceK
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At last, a positive use for wake generators!
Ran Aground
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The friendliest place on the web for anyone who enjoys boating.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
You are boating in different conditions than some of us. There are many places on the US east coast where the water depth is 5' or less. And there are places near inlets where the channel shoals and the deeper part moves.
For most of us, the depth sounder transducer is not installed at the bow so it could be showing 5' and the bow could be on the bottom.
Yes, you have to pay attention, but accidents will happen.
This guy wasn't paying attention, he was a hundred yards or so out of the channel. This was a trouble spot even in the channel just north of Charleston, SC but word is it's been dredged since we were there.
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hmason
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Is it possible to run the AICW without running aground? Yes. It's also possible to win the Powerball. I suggest that those of you that think running aground is not an accident, try the AICW.
RT Firefly
Enigma
Greetings,
Mr. hm. Well said! Hell, according to Mr. mb. I was "negligent" and "Not pay'in attention" 3x, within the space of 1/2 hour, just north of New Smyrna beach before they dredged the channel and removed the 2 dozen, or so, markers that snaked one through the labyrinth.
Mr. hm. Well said! Hell, according to Mr. mb. I was "negligent" and "Not pay'in attention" 3x, within the space of 1/2 hour, just north of New Smyrna beach before they dredged the channel and removed the 2 dozen, or so, markers that snaked one through the labyrinth.
Nomad Willy
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WesK,
That's true but there are many areas of shoals and river flats here too. In your example of the cat aground he may actually have been pay'in attention. We all "push it" at times thinking we can get around this tide rip and seas OK but then get bit my the odds. This cat guy probably knew he was in very skinny water and was "just push'in it". Figured he could steak across w/o getting stuck. Or he could have completely unaware. And if you want to plug the insurance factor into this (if there was damage) I'd say he would have no right to expect someone else to pay for his "pushing his luck" w the odds.
But w the OP he probably got more or less surprised so knowing what I do I'd say he was more or less in the "not pay'in attention" category. One must (IMO) pay enough attention to avoid the bottom and other well known hazards.
I ran into a log once in Alaska and I thought I was pay'in close attention. The seas were close and choppy and despite the fact that I was closely scanning the water ahead ...... BOOM. We hit the log. Thought we were going to sink and I threw the hatches open to see below and all was normal. No water came aboard. Never found a scratch on the hull that could have been caused by the log. Saw it come up behind the stern and it was 10' long and at least 1' in dia. Don't know how I could have missed it. That was an accident (IMO) but a case could be made that maybe I wasn't pay'in enough attention. I'm not sure. I didn't see the log but it clearly was there.
I hit a whale once (actually another time too) when he just lumped right up in front of us (3 - 8') cross ways and we slammed into him. That was an accident but I don't think the whale thought it was ... he did it on purpose as we were coming up on another whale .. probably a female and the whale was protecting his family.
But when one runs aground when he has chart plotting equipment, sounders, charts and presumably some common sense and in good weather he probably wasn't paying attention .. and not paying attention is negligent. And "I got the tide chart confused" is not paying attention to the tide chart.
So I don't like paying for insurance that pays for negligent driving "accidents".
That's true but there are many areas of shoals and river flats here too. In your example of the cat aground he may actually have been pay'in attention. We all "push it" at times thinking we can get around this tide rip and seas OK but then get bit my the odds. This cat guy probably knew he was in very skinny water and was "just push'in it". Figured he could steak across w/o getting stuck. Or he could have completely unaware. And if you want to plug the insurance factor into this (if there was damage) I'd say he would have no right to expect someone else to pay for his "pushing his luck" w the odds.
But w the OP he probably got more or less surprised so knowing what I do I'd say he was more or less in the "not pay'in attention" category. One must (IMO) pay enough attention to avoid the bottom and other well known hazards.
I ran into a log once in Alaska and I thought I was pay'in close attention. The seas were close and choppy and despite the fact that I was closely scanning the water ahead ...... BOOM. We hit the log. Thought we were going to sink and I threw the hatches open to see below and all was normal. No water came aboard. Never found a scratch on the hull that could have been caused by the log. Saw it come up behind the stern and it was 10' long and at least 1' in dia. Don't know how I could have missed it. That was an accident (IMO) but a case could be made that maybe I wasn't pay'in enough attention. I'm not sure. I didn't see the log but it clearly was there.
I hit a whale once (actually another time too) when he just lumped right up in front of us (3 - 8') cross ways and we slammed into him. That was an accident but I don't think the whale thought it was ... he did it on purpose as we were coming up on another whale .. probably a female and the whale was protecting his family.
But when one runs aground when he has chart plotting equipment, sounders, charts and presumably some common sense and in good weather he probably wasn't paying attention .. and not paying attention is negligent. And "I got the tide chart confused" is not paying attention to the tide chart.
So I don't like paying for insurance that pays for negligent driving "accidents".
I've seen that done on the lake. They actually used a wakeboard boat with adjustable wake. They have settings that you can almost surf down the side of the wake.
I'll just repeat the last part of the post that went with the photo:
"This guy wasn't paying attention, he was a hundred yards or so out of the channel. This was a trouble spot even in the channel just north of Charleston, SC but word is it's been dredged since we were there." (emphasis added).
We had no trouble. We scooted right by but we were actually between the red ones and the green ones. He was not. And he had several hours before the tide would come back in and float him off.
hmason
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Manyboats
charts and plotters are notoriously inaccurate particularly on the AICW. There are numerous areas where the gps chart plotter will show you to be driving on land when you are square in the channel. Charts are useless when markers are continually being relocated to keep up with changes in the bottom contours. You can run aground with your bow and your sounder will indicate 3 to 5 feet under the keel. Where you are located, you cannot understand the east coast challenges. Should you ever go boating here and run aground, I'm sure your insurance company will allow you to pay out of pocket for your negligence.
charts and plotters are notoriously inaccurate particularly on the AICW. There are numerous areas where the gps chart plotter will show you to be driving on land when you are square in the channel. Charts are useless when markers are continually being relocated to keep up with changes in the bottom contours. You can run aground with your bow and your sounder will indicate 3 to 5 feet under the keel. Where you are located, you cannot understand the east coast challenges. Should you ever go boating here and run aground, I'm sure your insurance company will allow you to pay out of pocket for your negligence.
Cuttyhunk47
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You must have it real easy up there in the NW.
Let's say you wanted to take your boat to Florida from the Chesapeake for the winter. Let's say your boat wasn't a passagemaker and you were not comfortable going outside for 1000 miles. Let's say you decide to use the ICW that is supposed to be maintained to between 8' and 10', but hasn't really been dredged for decades. And let's say you have invested in all that fancy navigation and you know how to use it and it works.
On the ICW, there have been times when your chart-plotter (the great ole Magenta line) tells you to pass the next can on the port, the paper chart confirms that, and your depth sounder (reading 10') suggests both are correct. Then your eyes notice that the boat in front of you, that passed the can to his port, has run aground. So, you pass the can on your starboard and drift through OK.
Was the boat in front of you, the one with the bent props, negligent for leaving the dock this morning? It would have been my props had I not seen that he was aground. I don't know what conditions you have up there, but when you transverse a 1000 mile waterway that is poorly maintained and varies anywhere between minimums of 4' to 10' depth, depending on tides and wind, going slower is not always the solution. Rocks is rocks.
No matter, Sea Tow was waiting near by, ready to tow and ready to bill some insurance company for his service. You can say that you are paying for that man's negligence, but that is what insurance is all about isn't it? Spreading the risk.
Cuttyhunk47
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Yes, also for us.
AND I really need that protection
I also have come to that conclusion! And now, I want a steel boat with dual skegs!
Don't forget 8 to 9' tide in some areas too.
West
Senior Member
Eric--- I've never boated the ICW or anywhere on the east/southeast coast and have no desire to other than I think Maine would be very cool. But I know from things I've read here and many other places over the years that that coast is far more "mobile" than most of this one is.
Sand bars shift and shift back, storms fill things in and then dig them out again, and on and on it goes. Add to that the tide and currents and it seems to me that navigating all this in terms of keeping off the bottom would present a pretty fair challenge.
Out here, sure, we have a few things like river deltas and channels like the Swinomish Channel down by you that can get tricky. But for the most part it's either deep or it's rocks and reefs. A thousand feet-plus on the depth sounder a few hundred yards from shore is not uncommon here as you well know.
So I think it's really apples and oranges when it comes to comparing navigating much of the east/southeast coast and navigating here with regards to water depths and the risks of going aground.
Back when I was a high school senior at a school outside St. Louis my best friend and I decided it would be a great adventure after graduation to take a canoe down the Mississippi to Baton Rouge where he had relatives. The last locks on the river are above St. Louis so it would be clear paddling all the way.
I had quite a bit of experience in canoes (non-whitewater)--- I'd trained to be a canoe instructor in Michigan a summer or two earlier--- but my friend had never been in a canoe in his life. He bought the canoe, a Grumman 17-footer, and I started teaching him what I could in the school's Olympic sized swimming pool. Our theory was that I would contribute the canoeing expertise and he would provide the camping expertise as our plan was to camp as much as possible on the islands in the river. Each of us would pick up the other's skills enroute.
We bought a big chart book of the river to use for planning our route, schedule and camping spots. I think it was from the Army Corps of Engineers. It was a huge, thick thing and detailed every single aspect of the river all the way down to its mouth. We also started reading everything we could find about the river and its characteristics.
What we learned fairly rapidly was that the Mississippi is like a snake. Always moving, always shifting, always hatching up surprises.
Obviously in a 17' aluminum canoe draft is not a big concern, right? But I think that today, based on what I learned back then and all the stuff I've read about the river from Mark Twain to detailed naval histories of the North and South on the river during the War Between the States to all sorts of other stuff, there is no way in hell I would venture onto that river in our 30,000 pound PNW cabin cruiser. I'd be scared to death of going aground sooner rather than later.
I know people take boats like ours and larger up and down that river and its tributaries all the time virtually trouble-free; they are as at home in that environment as we are in ours out here. But until one learns what one is dealing with, it's a whole different world with a whole lot of unique challenges.
My impression of the ICW and other east and southeast coast cruising grounds is somewhat the same as what I learned about the Mississippi. Sure, it's easy to knock the region because the terrain looks so boring. Flat as far as the eye can see and, hey, how hard can it be to drive a boat up and down a ditch, right?
Well, I think it's harder than you or I would ever suspect and the shifting nature of the bottom is a big part of it I think. Paying attention is a huge component, no question, just like it is here. Problem is, the bottom doesn't seem to be paying attention back there.
At least not to the people trying to boat over the top of it.
Sand bars shift and shift back, storms fill things in and then dig them out again, and on and on it goes. Add to that the tide and currents and it seems to me that navigating all this in terms of keeping off the bottom would present a pretty fair challenge.
Out here, sure, we have a few things like river deltas and channels like the Swinomish Channel down by you that can get tricky. But for the most part it's either deep or it's rocks and reefs. A thousand feet-plus on the depth sounder a few hundred yards from shore is not uncommon here as you well know.
So I think it's really apples and oranges when it comes to comparing navigating much of the east/southeast coast and navigating here with regards to water depths and the risks of going aground.
Back when I was a high school senior at a school outside St. Louis my best friend and I decided it would be a great adventure after graduation to take a canoe down the Mississippi to Baton Rouge where he had relatives. The last locks on the river are above St. Louis so it would be clear paddling all the way.
I had quite a bit of experience in canoes (non-whitewater)--- I'd trained to be a canoe instructor in Michigan a summer or two earlier--- but my friend had never been in a canoe in his life. He bought the canoe, a Grumman 17-footer, and I started teaching him what I could in the school's Olympic sized swimming pool. Our theory was that I would contribute the canoeing expertise and he would provide the camping expertise as our plan was to camp as much as possible on the islands in the river. Each of us would pick up the other's skills enroute.
We bought a big chart book of the river to use for planning our route, schedule and camping spots. I think it was from the Army Corps of Engineers. It was a huge, thick thing and detailed every single aspect of the river all the way down to its mouth. We also started reading everything we could find about the river and its characteristics.
What we learned fairly rapidly was that the Mississippi is like a snake. Always moving, always shifting, always hatching up surprises.
Obviously in a 17' aluminum canoe draft is not a big concern, right? But I think that today, based on what I learned back then and all the stuff I've read about the river from Mark Twain to detailed naval histories of the North and South on the river during the War Between the States to all sorts of other stuff, there is no way in hell I would venture onto that river in our 30,000 pound PNW cabin cruiser. I'd be scared to death of going aground sooner rather than later.
I know people take boats like ours and larger up and down that river and its tributaries all the time virtually trouble-free; they are as at home in that environment as we are in ours out here. But until one learns what one is dealing with, it's a whole different world with a whole lot of unique challenges.
My impression of the ICW and other east and southeast coast cruising grounds is somewhat the same as what I learned about the Mississippi. Sure, it's easy to knock the region because the terrain looks so boring. Flat as far as the eye can see and, hey, how hard can it be to drive a boat up and down a ditch, right?
Well, I think it's harder than you or I would ever suspect and the shifting nature of the bottom is a big part of it I think. Paying attention is a huge component, no question, just like it is here. Problem is, the bottom doesn't seem to be paying attention back there.
At least not to the people trying to boat over the top of it.Attachments
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Capt.Bill11
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For many years - At infinitesimally slow speed (.01 knots)I often purposely run the nose of our Tolly firmly-aground up and onto the relatively soft, wet, yet well rooted and stable edges of small islands in SF Delta. Once nose touches ground I throttle up to raise nose onto island edge to the point that current/wind at that moment (in any direction) will not dislodge boat. Due to some Delta's islands steep drop-off at their edges in sloughs/channels 90 degree angle to the islands with nose firmly aground leaves rear 2/3 of boat in clear water of good depth.
Then I fling a light weight aluminum Viking anchor and line out at bow rail into islands weed and small tree growth (I get about a 40' toss accomplished). I make sure with windless that the flung anchor is well adhered to island growth.
Then I take our runabout and go out off transom some 250' across slough with a Fortress FX-23 aluminum anchor (set at 45 degree shank to fluke with 15' chain to 5/8 line) with my wife feeding line as I go and we drop rear anchor into the Delta's soft mud bottom. We slowly pull Fortress back toward boat until it firmly sets.
Then I go to bow and leave enough line to the front anchor on island so that boat's nose can be backed just a bit off island edge and into deeper water (so that the 4' +/- tide level change is no problem). I do this by starting engines. As I slowly back off island edge my Admiral pulls in rear anchor's then becoming slack line and when I have forward anchor's line fairly taught she fastens the rear anchor's line to our starboard transom cleat.
And a swimming we do go! Perfect for days of party relaxation/enjoyment and running around in our cute, fast Crestliner runabout.
This anchor-out technique is not for everyone and you must know how to read any island's edge to know if this technique will work in that location. Incorrectly attempted there are many bad items that could occur while performing the actions as well as can occur when sleeping, or during tide changes, or because of winds. I've seen some try and fail with damage to their boats and equipment. YRMV
I am always watching the depth sounder wherever I go that I feel water depth may become less than 10' deep under my keel. "So far" in decades of boating, I have never run aground - unless I wanted to!
Happy Anchor-Out Daze! - Art
Yes, I love sticking the bow on the beach.
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Reminds me of a story. We loaded up a buddy's boat(Boomerang...which is now owned by a TFmember) with all of us and our women with the intent of making it to a particular restaurant/bar in a shallow bay(Dickinson Bay). Well...we got stuck. We were kind of expecting it. As we sat there we were trying to figure out our strategy to get the boat to float again. Well we figured there was a bunch of people on board and if we got some people out of the boat then it might float. Ironically, it was all of the girls that got out of the boat first....and the boat floated!!!!! Although all of the boys looked at each other with a smirk...and the girls noticed.... not a word was said!!!!!
Capt.Bill11
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The odds of making it up or down the ICW without running aground are not quite that high.
A great many of those that touch bottom are either out of the channel, even though they will swear they were not, or not playing the tides as they should.
So for the most part Eric is right. Running aground is rarely a true accident. Even on the ICW.
But there are of course exceptions. Like how the ICW near Haulover Inlet in Miami had an unmarked hazard right in the channel. But after a certain point it was pretty common knowledge it was there. So I guess you could say hitting after that was no longer as much of an accident.
Capt.Bill11
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Is that the Skipper and Gilligan in front of the bow?
Later,
Dan
Good eye.
They were very happy to see us after all those years. And luckily for me, the years had been kind to Mary Ann and Ginger.
What are the reasons for beaching vs. anchoring and using one's dinghy to get to shore?
Cuttyhunk47
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