Atlantic - Offshore in January.

[Ed Schenck]

Love these threads about cruising. Gives us northerners something to dream about. But we are actually leaving the Pamlico for Tampa Bay about mid-January. Conventional wisdom says stay in the ditch. But what about sailing instead of motoring?

The pilot charts for January and February suggest we might have about a 15-20 percent chance of west winds. That would seem ideal, offshore breezes while staying inside of the Gulf Stream but still well out. Is this right? We know to avoid anything from the NE around to NNW. But what about NW or WNW?

We do have all the inlets mapped and would never schedule a run where we could not get in before a weather change. It is just so slow in the ICW.

Have any of you had clear nights where you ran the ICW after dark? Still I tire just thinking of the diesel.

 

[sailingdog]

At least the price of Diesel has dropped to reasonable levels.

 

[Stu Jackson]

ICW at Night?

Ed, from everything I've read (quite a bit, some good books, too, including Silver Donald Cameron's latest) running the ICW at night is NOT something to every consider. Shoals, shoals, shoals, seems to be the mantra, harder enough to see during the daytime. Same is true out here for the Calfironia Delta - bahd form they do say.

Anyone with personal experience here?

 

[Ross]

Our worst storms in winter track across the south and then run up the coast. Not many seem to form off the coast they seem to be well developed by the time they reach the coast We generally get 2-3 days warning for a bad storm.

 

[Todd Smith]

I have done the ICW from Norfolk, VA to Beaufort, NC in December running at night. We did it in less than 48 hours on a delivery. I would not recommend doing that on a boat that you owned. My trip was a delivery on another man's boat. It's draft was 7 feet and we went aground 11 times by my recall. The owner counted for 4, I was in last place with 1 grounding. Never life threatening, but not good for the boat.

Sailing south from Beaufort to Charleston was 2 days of fine sailing, with a stop at Wrightsville Beach.

You can run offshore at night, but don't do it in the ditch.

 

[CalebD]

Ed,
There are some interesting articles written by Jon Eisenberg who sometimes hangs out at the Cruisers Forum supported by this website. He seems to recommend going outside when you can to make better time. I bet if you posted over there he might chime in.
Articles:
http://www.cruisingworld.com/destinations/north-america/an-insiders-icw-34398.html
http://www.cruisingworld.com/destinations/north-america/the-ditch-love-at-first-sight-34399.html
http://www.cruisingworld.com/destinations/north-america/captain-jons-murderers-row-34402.html
This should be a list of all his published articles over there:
http://www.cruisingworld.com/article_search.jsp?author=Jon+Eisberg

 

[Buck420]

Ed,
I brought my boat back from Florida last February. Left Canaveral and two days later was forced into Winyah Bay Inlet (SC) by strong NE winds. Stayed inside to Wrightsville Beach and then back out of Masonbourough Inlet to Morehead City.
Running offshore in January is certainly doable when the weather is favorable. Going south, if you have 24-48hrs of nice sunny weather with winds under 20kts out of any northerly quadrant ( inc. NE); you should be OK runnng downwind offshore from inlet to inlet. Otherwise, you can stay inside.
Personally, I'd wait for weather windows and go offshore. The ICW in NC,SC, and Georgia is tedious, sholling, and slow. It will be especially uncomfortable to run aground when it's cold and nasty.
Re, running the ICW after dark... if you're really in a hurry, it can be done, but it's not easy. You must have an excellent chart plotter. I mounted a large (switchable)spotlight on my bow (ala the tugboats) so that we could better see the daymarks. It helped very much to stay in the channel(s). But, even a few hours of running in the dark is exhausting and I personally wouldn't care to risk running aground at night when its cold and nasty. You can't just sit and wait for daylight because tugs do push barges up and down the waterway at night and finding yourself sitting in their way isn't a good thing.
Good luck, have a great trip.... it does eventually get warm by the time you get down to central Fla.. have fun
Oh, BTW, the avitar is from last Feb; crossing the Currituck Sound against a 20+kt NW wind ... temp 28degF... burrrrrr.... but you're from way up North, so this shouldn't bother you, right ??

 

[seadaddler]

Hi ED

Funny thing I saw you on another posting and was going to ask if and when you were making a trip down to Florida.
Any way in case you did not here I sailed from Montauk,NY from Oct 20 this year offshore until Cape Hatteras where we went into the ICW,never want to go into that inlet Again,thanks to the CG helping we did make safely.
We docked at at Teach's Marina and had some great shrimp and crab legs at Dirty Dicks,next day started sailing in 30 Knts of wind but it did change direction we had to motor in the dark to Adams Creek where we BBQ a london broil and some fish we had caught out off shore.
We went down the ICW the next day 10/26 to Cape Carnaveral on 10/29 late at night which is easy to do at this inlet and dock across from the cruise ships at cape marina fuel dock for thye night,draw bridge kept us from proceeding any further.
We did motor through the barge canal locks and drawbridge into the ICW all day which was a nice comfortable ride down to Fort Pierce town marina late into the late night,we went into town and had some beers and a few doz.clams.
What I am saying is my C-80 Charplotter made it very easy for me to stay in the ICW channel in the dark with very few lighted markers.
For the last two years my C-80 has helped me in Florida and also NY able to stay out of trouble and find my way in and out of channels that I normally would have not done due to bad planning,I don't usually plan night time
travel,the exception sailing the off shore trip down to Florida from NY.
If you have a real good size Chartplotter screen like the C-80 it is doable in most situations.
Keep in touch my boat is in Fort Pierce and planning a sail around to Punta Gorda in Jan.
Nick

 

[seadaddler]

No

No I would not travel at night on The ICW with out a very good Charplotter
because most marker aids have no lights and only new they were in front or to the side with the chartplotter showing me,the channel made so many winding curves to the left and than to the right we would have run aground for sure,
it is very dark and can't see anything without a light on it.
Sorry eating my dinner now.
Nick

 

[Rick I]

In the ICW even with a good chartplotter you're taking a chance. The depths bear no resemblance to even the latest charts. Only the commercial tugs travel at night and they have big spotlights and go from light to light and bull their way through when they hit bottom. As for heading south outside if you've got the stomach for it you can ride the fronts down.

 

[Ed Schenck]

Thanks guys, some good stuff so far. I'll let this simmer a bit before I say too much. But I should mention that my H37C is a shoal draft, a little over 4' in cruising form. Even so we did stick her entering the Pungo River last fall and we were in the channel.

 

[Paul F]

November trip

Just made the trip from Norfolk to St. Augustine last month. Most of it was in the intercoastal. Were outside from Charleston to Brunswick. As we all know it is much better to be outside but to be outside takes the right weather. If you have the time, take it and wait at port for the right outside weather. There is no way to do the intercoastal at night. It is cold so you have your dodger up making it hard to see through the plastic. Most makers are not lit. The boat's lights have to look forward and around courners. We had a Raymarine chart ploter that would display the boat in the swamp or on land some of the time, so chart ploters can not be relyed on. Radar doesn't help in-close. The best navigational instrument on the boat is the depth finder which you learn to watch and guide the boat. If we had the time we would have waited for better weather. The Captain came down with his boat from Maine and was anxious to reach St. Augustine. He had been in a gale outside NY and NJ and didn't want anymore bad weather. There were three of us from Norfolk to Charleston and then two from there on. In looking back it would have been better to leave the intercoastal at Georgetown as the intercoastal is rough between Georgetown and Charleston. We had a 24 hour period of good weather, 10-20kts NNE and went out at Charleston. The weather closed and we came in at Brunswick a good inlet. In doing this we missed Northern GA's intercoastal with its meandering route. Again, if you have the time wait for good weather and fair winds.