So Smitty has now been in every state on the eastern seaboard. Maine to Florida. She was perfect for the ICW. We had no mast height issues and our 5 foot draft gave us more available anchorages then some of our friends.
The ICW proved to be more motoring than anything. In fact we only sailed 9 of the 51 days we took to travel the 1,852 nautical miles we have covered since leaving Massachusetts. Sailing on the ICW can be dicey. Often you are crossing large sounds but only a 30-50 foot wide channel has been dredged deeper than 3 feet. And there is a lot of shoaling areas. If you had a sail up and hit one of these shoals it could be a pit of a disaster for your boat. We know a couple of people that have had this misfortune and most had to be hauled for repairs following the grounding. But the engine on our boat is well sized and we had no problem averaging slightly over 5 knots every day despite some strong currents. And reasonably efficient. We used 292.5 gallons of diesel to this point in our trip.
The ICW has been fun and we have gotten to visit a lot of places we would have passed by going offshore. For instance Charleston, NC, Cumberland Island, GA and St. Augustine, FL are places that a lot of our cruising friends have skipped by going offshore that we loved and made the whole trip worth it. We did get bored at times, especially when it was day after day of motoring through swamps and canals. Some of the Florida sections have been frustrating with the amount of bridges you need to get open with timed openings only. But we have been able to keep up speed enough to make the timing on almost all while some of the other cruisers we have seen with boats in the 35 foot and less range couldn't keep up. We won't do the whole ICW again but may very well do parts of it.
We did run aground 3 times, in Sandy Hook, NJ, Deltaville, VA and Fort Pierce, FL. Sandy Hook was a sand shoal that had proceeded out into the anchorage about 20 feet more than shown on charts and wasn't reported on Active Captain until we put it up there. We saw 3 boats besides ourselves hit the same shoal on the same day, some despite us hailing them on the VHF to give them the heads up. In Deltaville it was just some mud in an anchorage. Both times we were going slow as we approach the anchorage and were able to back off with little effort.
In Fort Pierce it was a different story. We were going slow looking at an anchorage. Typically I check our Navionics Sonar charts, the NOAA charts from Navionics and our paper charts in choosing an anchorage. In this case we switch anchorages at the last minute due to a strong north wind and I only looked at the Navionics Sonar as we approached the anchorage. While the Sonar charts showed plenty of water, the others didn't and we went from 8 feet of water to less than 5 feet is less than 10 linear feet. The 20 knot winds we were trying to hide from ended up pushing us up further, even without any sails up, and turned us sideways on the shoal. When I tried to back off I felt that the rudder was dug in. We were able to kedge off with our anchor. My Bride came up with the smart plan to move weight forward to get the rudder further up out of the sand/mud so we didn't drag it through and damage the rudder. We got off, checked the rudder and continued on our way. We did check the rudder and keel during a haul out 3 days later for bottom painting and all is fine.
I don't blame Navionics for the incorrect information on the charts. We have used Navionics on our iPad as our primary electronic navigation for the entire trip. We have found that Navionics Sonar is more accurate than the NOAA electronic or paper charts. But both can be inaccurate at times and it is a little weird some of the patterns we have noticed. For instance Navionics Sonar is more accurate in Florida, Chesapeake and Delaware. But NOAA has been more accurate in the Carolinas. Neither was particularly good in Georgia.
We have messed around with amount of anchor chain a lot. We started with 20 feet of chain. After experiencing a keel wrap on a night I was lazy and didn't put out the kettle I added 40 more feet I got from a consignment shop. Recently I just added 90 feet more I got from another cruiser. Ideally I think the right amount is 125 feet of chain with at least 100 feet of nylon behind it. In most anchorages we are putting out less than 90 feet but there are some 15-20 foot deep anchorages where more chain is useful. Even with the 150 feet of chain on my primary anchor and the 30 feet on my secondary anchor plus both anchors in the locker or on the bow we are not too heavy in the bow. I way over thought the weight concern.
Our Manson Supreme has been rock solid. We have only dragged twice on the entire ICW and we anchored a lot. Both drags were in fairly narrow rivers that were deep in the middle and had a strong current. We couldn't put out enough scope due to the narrow river. Our scope was less than 5 to 1 on both occasions, even less than 4 to 1 once. Our Drag Queen alarm alerted us both times and we were able to reset the anchor and go back to bed. We have waited out storms with winds as high as 60 knots on anchor. The only time we got worried was going through a tornado warning in West Palm, gust to 40 knots but we were actively watching for a tornado to form right in front of our boat. Grateful it didn't.
We no sit anchored in No Name Harbor on Key Biscayne. We are looking at a weather window on Sunday or Monday for our crossing of the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas. With some luck we will be in Bimini for Sunday night dinner.
Fair winds,
Jesse
The ICW proved to be more motoring than anything. In fact we only sailed 9 of the 51 days we took to travel the 1,852 nautical miles we have covered since leaving Massachusetts. Sailing on the ICW can be dicey. Often you are crossing large sounds but only a 30-50 foot wide channel has been dredged deeper than 3 feet. And there is a lot of shoaling areas. If you had a sail up and hit one of these shoals it could be a pit of a disaster for your boat. We know a couple of people that have had this misfortune and most had to be hauled for repairs following the grounding. But the engine on our boat is well sized and we had no problem averaging slightly over 5 knots every day despite some strong currents. And reasonably efficient. We used 292.5 gallons of diesel to this point in our trip.
The ICW has been fun and we have gotten to visit a lot of places we would have passed by going offshore. For instance Charleston, NC, Cumberland Island, GA and St. Augustine, FL are places that a lot of our cruising friends have skipped by going offshore that we loved and made the whole trip worth it. We did get bored at times, especially when it was day after day of motoring through swamps and canals. Some of the Florida sections have been frustrating with the amount of bridges you need to get open with timed openings only. But we have been able to keep up speed enough to make the timing on almost all while some of the other cruisers we have seen with boats in the 35 foot and less range couldn't keep up. We won't do the whole ICW again but may very well do parts of it.
We did run aground 3 times, in Sandy Hook, NJ, Deltaville, VA and Fort Pierce, FL. Sandy Hook was a sand shoal that had proceeded out into the anchorage about 20 feet more than shown on charts and wasn't reported on Active Captain until we put it up there. We saw 3 boats besides ourselves hit the same shoal on the same day, some despite us hailing them on the VHF to give them the heads up. In Deltaville it was just some mud in an anchorage. Both times we were going slow as we approach the anchorage and were able to back off with little effort.
In Fort Pierce it was a different story. We were going slow looking at an anchorage. Typically I check our Navionics Sonar charts, the NOAA charts from Navionics and our paper charts in choosing an anchorage. In this case we switch anchorages at the last minute due to a strong north wind and I only looked at the Navionics Sonar as we approached the anchorage. While the Sonar charts showed plenty of water, the others didn't and we went from 8 feet of water to less than 5 feet is less than 10 linear feet. The 20 knot winds we were trying to hide from ended up pushing us up further, even without any sails up, and turned us sideways on the shoal. When I tried to back off I felt that the rudder was dug in. We were able to kedge off with our anchor. My Bride came up with the smart plan to move weight forward to get the rudder further up out of the sand/mud so we didn't drag it through and damage the rudder. We got off, checked the rudder and continued on our way. We did check the rudder and keel during a haul out 3 days later for bottom painting and all is fine.
I don't blame Navionics for the incorrect information on the charts. We have used Navionics on our iPad as our primary electronic navigation for the entire trip. We have found that Navionics Sonar is more accurate than the NOAA electronic or paper charts. But both can be inaccurate at times and it is a little weird some of the patterns we have noticed. For instance Navionics Sonar is more accurate in Florida, Chesapeake and Delaware. But NOAA has been more accurate in the Carolinas. Neither was particularly good in Georgia.
We have messed around with amount of anchor chain a lot. We started with 20 feet of chain. After experiencing a keel wrap on a night I was lazy and didn't put out the kettle I added 40 more feet I got from a consignment shop. Recently I just added 90 feet more I got from another cruiser. Ideally I think the right amount is 125 feet of chain with at least 100 feet of nylon behind it. In most anchorages we are putting out less than 90 feet but there are some 15-20 foot deep anchorages where more chain is useful. Even with the 150 feet of chain on my primary anchor and the 30 feet on my secondary anchor plus both anchors in the locker or on the bow we are not too heavy in the bow. I way over thought the weight concern.
Our Manson Supreme has been rock solid. We have only dragged twice on the entire ICW and we anchored a lot. Both drags were in fairly narrow rivers that were deep in the middle and had a strong current. We couldn't put out enough scope due to the narrow river. Our scope was less than 5 to 1 on both occasions, even less than 4 to 1 once. Our Drag Queen alarm alerted us both times and we were able to reset the anchor and go back to bed. We have waited out storms with winds as high as 60 knots on anchor. The only time we got worried was going through a tornado warning in West Palm, gust to 40 knots but we were actively watching for a tornado to form right in front of our boat. Grateful it didn't.
We no sit anchored in No Name Harbor on Key Biscayne. We are looking at a weather window on Sunday or Monday for our crossing of the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas. With some luck we will be in Bimini for Sunday night dinner.
Fair winds,
Jesse
