Keeping yourself Honest - what have you encountered?

[Captain Ahab]

I do a good bit of offshore fishing off of DE/MD/VA - we were at the Baltimore Canyon (about 70 miles off) on day and saw an open boat maybe 19' - loaded with guys and a drum of fuel.

We pulled alongside and we swore they were Cuban refugees escaping Castro - NOPE! About 5 or 6 guys tile fishing :shock:


I have run off is a 20' boat but only after careful weather study - we do that once or twice a year for Tuna and such. This year we got into a good bit of Mahi about 35 miles off - really fun stuff - 2 guys and a small boat!

As far a weather stories - wayyy to many! Latest one was moving a 48 Hatteras down the Chessie bay to VA beach - calm sailing all day until we crossed the Bay Tunnel - then soling 10-15' green waves - turning that big tub in the trough as the boat laid down so the fly bridge looked like it would touch was very scary


Always watch the weather - and always expect the worst! EPIRB - never leave the dock without on in the ocean

 

[PSG-1]

I fish this same body of water and I have been out on this lake when it went from calm and sunny to "I wish I were someplace else" in a matter of minutes. The waves can get pretty large, but they are close together so you have no place to hide in a smaller boat.

That sounds about like Winyah Bay in Georgetown, SC. Again, with the confluence of 5 rivers hitting a wide, shallow body of water, depending on the tide and wind, it can be a mirror-smooth run, or it can be 4-5 foot rollers. I've seen it under both conditions. Just about every year, someone dies on this body of water.

 

[kfa4303]

yeah, lots of folks here in FL head out into the Gulf in jon boats and the like, but I wouldn't do it for all the tea in China. As the old saying goes; "There are bold sailors. There are old sailors, but there are no old, bold sailors."

 

[earl60446]

Pretty common to go out 20-25 miles down in the east cape (baja california) fishing and you (at least we were) on a 17-18 foot fiberglass rowboat with about a 50hp motor on it. There was no alternate propulsion on our boat, not even an oar. Only a hand held vhf (some don't have that), no epirb and no life jackets. I always brought my own. They did have about 35 gals of gas in a drum to refill their 6 gal tank by sucking on a 6 ft hose. Good fishing though, only time we fished in bad weather was close to shore. Also no gps, no depth finder, no first aid kit, no flares, no horn.
Tim

 

[jethro]

Scariest body of water I have ever been in was Lake Mooselookmeguntic in Maine. When it comes up it does so very quickly and the water gets real big. I was in 4' rollers in my 14' Grumman and it was just plain scary. 2 miles took about 2 hours, very slow moving.

SquiggyFreud, in response to suggestions...

1. If you are caught out far from the launch and the water comes up, you will not want to take waves to the side. In that case you'll need to tack with or against the waves. You'll need to use the throttle to find the best speed.

2. If it's windy, use extreme caution when you are bow towards the wind. I personally have a friend who was flipped in a fairly heavy 16' tin boat. When you climb the wave face there is a point when the bottom of the boat is exposed to the wind and it can act just like an airplane wing. This is my biggest fear as you can usually correct yourself when you take waves over the gunwale, but when that happens it is over before you know it.

3. Have some way to bail the boat if you don't have a bilge. In my Grumman I keep an old sauce pan right in the back with me by the tiller. If that times comes, you won't be able to let go of that tiller handle for even a split second.

4. When the weather comes up try and get the center of gravity low. No coolers or tackle boxes on the seats, put them on the floor.

5. If you get to the launch and the waves are running dead into the launch, beware of getting swamped. I've seen it happen. Those waves are pretty rough on the flat transom of a boat when it's beached.

6. Of course, goes without saying... if you aren't the type to wear your life-jacket 100% of the time, put it on the instant the weather starts turning. There will come a point when things happen too fast and taking 15 seconds away from driving the boat to put on your jacket is not an option. Put it on early. It's easy to think that it won't get all that bad and then before you know it- it is that bad. I've been out there when it was literally like someone flipped a switch. 1 second it was 1 foot swells and the next it was 3 foot swells.

 

[Ranchero50]

I had enough bad experiences in the Navy to just stay home or turn around before bad stuff happens in the jet boat.

I was in one of four frigates doing hurricane evasion with the George Washington somewhere off Delaware and we ran low on fuel. Being low on fuel on a 450' x 50' single screw canoe sucks. We couldn't refuel because (get this), the carrier was rocking enough that they were afraid our mast would hit them. I saw rudder and bow sonars on the other frigates and I know our screw came out at least one time on that trip. My SPS-49 radar has 12` +/- elevation and had trouble keeping level at 12rpm.

Other dumb stuff was a stormy night the bridge crew got us running parallel with the trough and guys were getting thrown out of their bunks. Another was a pretty mild day that the stabilizer gyro pooped out. Then there was the swim call in the gulf stream when they stopped parallel to the waves (that was fun). Had many meals where you just caught the salt or pepper as it slid below your seat on the mess deck. Walking with your elbows held out to bounce off walls was pretty common too. We usually had an 8-12 second roll rate walking was a 20' zig, bounce off the wall , then another 20' zag to the other wall. Good stuff.

 

[PSG-1]

Good advice, jethro.

I'll add one more to that list. Running against waves is pretty tough, but to me, the worst condition is having to run with them, because the stern is lower, and it's a wide, flat surface that the sea can act upon. At least running against waves, you can take evasive action and try to tack around and through them. Running with them, though, you are a sitting duck, you have limited maneuverability.

When you're running with the waves, be careful about how you do it. Try to stay on the back of the wave, and don't try to outrun it. If you do, there is a high risk of 'pitch-poling', this is where your bow goes underwater, and the wave lifts your stern, then you flip. It becomes even more important when you get into breaking waves, like running an inlet.

As for running inlets....this is a dangerous undertaking, and it gets even MORE tricky when going through a cut in a sandbar, or worse, having to actually cross a sandbar that extends all the way across the mouth of an inlet, like where I grew up in Cherry Grove. No jetties to stabilize that particular inlet. It was, and still is, subject to continual change, and unpredictable conditions. You literally had to learn that place from one year to the next, because the bar would shift around so much.

Here's what I mean, watch how much this inlet shifts, in particular, the bar at the mouth of the inlet:

1994:


2005:


2008:


2011:


and 2012:


Regardless of that sandbar's position, even at its deepest point, you can almost walk across the inlet at dead low tide. And although it is a small inlet, it's a dangerous one. I moved from there in 1991, which was before these images, but the inlet was the same when I lived there, every year, it moved around and you had to learn it.

Always try to read the water and find the safest route when traversing an inlet. Be ready to adjust throttle accordingly to keep the boat where it needs to be, on the back of the wave. If running with the waves, keep watch on your stern, be aware of breaking waves coming up behind you, and be ready to get on the throttle to move your stern ahead of the break.

If you get into conditions like this, not only should you be wearing a PFD, but your kill switch, as well. A PFD isn't going to do much good against a rotating propeller if you should fall overboard with a running engine.

Besides the incident in Winyah Bay with the Alindale skiff, the only other time I came very close to losing a boat, or my life, was in the inlet in Cherry Grove Beach in the middle of January around 1987, running back into the inlet on a falling tide, with a 14 ft johnboat. I made the mistake of outrunning a wave, and the only reason I did not pitch pole, was because I was right at the sandbar, less than 2 ft of water, so, when my bow went down, it hit bottom, keeping the boat level, and the force of the wave behind me, pushed me across the bar, with the stern taking on some water. Needless to say, my cheeks pinched a pyramid in the boat seat cushion. :shock:

 

[PSG-1]

Ranchero50 » Today, 05:50[/url]"]I had enough bad experiences in the Navy to just stay home or turn around before bad stuff happens in the jet boat.

I was in one of four frigates doing hurricane evasion with the George Washington somewhere off Delaware and we ran low on fuel. Being low on fuel on a 450' x 50' single screw canoe sucks. We couldn't refuel because (get this), the carrier was rocking enough that they were afraid our mast would hit them. I saw rudder and bow sonars on the other frigates and I know our screw came out at least one time on that trip. My SPS-49 radar has 12` +/- elevation and had trouble keeping level at 12rpm.

Other dumb stuff was a stormy night the bridge crew got us running parallel with the trough and guys were getting thrown out of their bunks. Another was a pretty mild day that the stabilizer gyro pooped out. Then there was the swim call in the gulf stream when they stopped parallel to the waves (that was fun). Had many meals where you just caught the salt or pepper as it slid below your seat on the mess deck. Walking with your elbows held out to bounce off walls was pretty common too. We usually had an 8-12 second roll rate walking was a 20' zig, bounce off the wall , then another 20' zag to the other wall. Good stuff.

Ranchero, thanks for your service to the US! Those accounts of rough weather and rolling ships remind me of some accounts I heard by guys who were in the USCG doing international weather patrols. One guy told me you could feel the ship shake and shudder as it would climb a wave, then drop back down. They did some international weather patrols in the Bering Sea, and he told me it would be so cold, along with the freezing spray, people's beards would actually freeze and break off! That may have been an exaggeration, but probably not by much. Stories like this, and some of the stories I've heard from commercial fishermen offshore, is why I prefer to never leave sight of land!