Great Day Sailing past Sunday on Charlotte Harbor! We hit 7.2 Kts, but wasn't fast enough on the camera to capture it!
Sailing on charlotte harbor! gotta love it!
- Thread starter PGIJon
- Start date
He's probably got an offset on the depth reading but here in Florida we do sail with just a few inches of clearance below our keel. You learn to read the water and from time to time you bump bottom. Remember seeing in Maryland a sign that said to paraphrase "Caution, shallow depth, 20 ft". No indications of large shipping at the location. That is our overall average depth in Tampa Bay.
The depth is offset by the 4'3" draft of the keel, so the actual depth was around 8.5 ft.... Plenty deep for us down here. What's great about the depth of our waters here is that there is zero commercial traffic!
One reason I tell people why I love Charlotte Harbor is you can sail all day without going into the ocean and have to deal with the waves. But you still have access to the world by water if you want to venture out. Just got back from a trip to the Dry Tortugas and Key West and had a great sail all day when we left Charlotte Harbor but by nightfall we were pretty tired of the wave action on the beam and winds gusting into the 20s. Yep, we love Charlotte Harbor!
Oh BTW, while at the Dry Tortugas a couple of guys from Punta Gorda with a 1994 35' Hunter went around in the middle of the night. It took two tow boats and I heard $10,500 to get him off. I think they bent his mast and damaged his bulkheads. They towed him all the way to Key West. Moral is don't skimp on the ground tackle.