Rough seas

You nailed it....great read. I skimmed through it but will go back and reread it in full.

Thanks for posting the link.
 
He brings up valid issues, but doesn't address something I experienced. Having a planing hull can get you speed, but our larger vessels have turbos and turbo lag...I've had situations where you had to choose coming off plane carefully as getting back on plane can take time...On my vessel, the sweet spot of 12-14 kts, takes you off plane and you're pushing a lot of water....In other words, I find it hard to run between say 8-15kts...

Over 8kts I'm pushing a lot of water and I'm at 15kts by the time I'm on plane....Taking seas at 17-19kts can be interesting at times.

Anyone run into this issue? We're not running center consoles with triple 350's that can run at pretty much any speed quickly...
 
Here's my contribution to running at 10kts (not on plane) in 8' and higher waves. The one that came over the top of the fly bridge knocked my anchor light off the top of the arch, and that's 20' off the water.

I can stay below 15kts and not be on plane, but above 11-12kts I'm pushing a lot of water. Normally I would run a little slower than I was in this video but we were trying to make it to a lock on the Columbia on time.
 
"Having a little bit of a bumpy ride" -- that's an understatement. :)
 
Wow. I would not have been so calm. That definitely is a pucker moment.

She did cut through well. I think what hit the windshield was actually the spray from your bow entry cutting the swell.
 
El Capitan said:
Wow. I would not have been so calm. That definitely is a pucker moment.

She did cut through well. I think what hit the windshield was actually the spray from your bow entry cutting the swell.
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I don't know what it was but I know it was not spray. We'd been battling spray for much of this trip and what hit the windshield was green water, and it hit hard enough that it knocked me off my feet onto my butt on the seat.

I happened to take four videos that day, this was the fourth of them. If you want to see the others, go to YouTube and type in "Umatilla Days 1", then ...2, ...3...4. In each one the wind picks up and the waves pick up.

We eventually turned around that day, not because of the wind and waves, but because of my not wanting to go the locks with the wind blowing that hard.,
 
Watched them. The seas got progressively worse but the boat speed didn’t seem to slow lol!

Watched what hit you couple times, it does look like that whole wave came over the bow.

I’m sure the ole gal didn’t mind exercising her bones on that trip.

Be safe !
 
I think on that wave that came over the bow that I had stuffed the bow into a larger than normal wave. You can see the bow rise up more than it had been on the prior wave, then when it came down into the trough it stuck the bow into the next one.

Makes for an interesting day on the water. :cool:
 
Gofirstclass said:
I think on that wave that came over the bow that I had stuffed the bow into a larger than normal wave. You can see the bow rise up more than it had been on the prior wave, then when it came down into the trough it stuck the bow into the next one.

Makes for an interesting day on the water. :cool:
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Got caught in a bit worse than that in the ocean coming back from a trip last Fall.
I won’t make a dumb decision like that anymore.
The conditions had me concerned but knowing I was the only guy out there once we were in the ocean really made me nervous.
Should have gotten a slip for an extra night but my wife wanted to get home.
Started out at dawn coming down the Hudson from upstate NY in dense fog and things got bad when we hit the ocean.
Usually we can avoid bad stuff on the ocean early in the mornings or later in the day but when the wind comes out of the east around here all bets are off.
A bit more wave height with short duration and heavy wind coming right at our bow.
Not fun at all. My wife rode it out sitting on the floor in the cabin with her back against the fridge. Freezer door flew open and ice cube trays flew out.
Had to keep one of the panels above the windshield open for visibility so I got soaked.
I wanted to video it but couldn’t get to the phone.
Luckily we had the option of going in to a closer inlet than the one we normally use so we only had to deal with it coming out of NY harbor and for 12 miles after we turned east.
The inlets around here can be unforgiving in good conditions if you don’t watch out and they get kind of hairy in sloppy weather like that.
No picnic!
We were relieved to be in the Bay but coming in sooner made for a really long ride home at a time when we just wanted to get back to the dock ASAP.
 
b_arrington said:
12 miles before getting the inlet must feel like an eternity.
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It did. Didn’t think I would ever get my wife on the boat or out in the ocean again after that ride but she was pretty good about it.
Going in the ocean, or anyplace where you don’t have to keep one eye peeled to the depth finder for me as a south shore boater is usually a real treat and I wouldn’t want to have to cut back on it.
We may have the beaches, but you north shore guys have it made with the deep water.
 
Agreed on not making the same mistake twice. Since our mishap, we’ve made the decision to either go earlier, leave later, or abort a trip altogether. We aren’t going anywhere that justifies traveling in dense fog, 4-6 footers and 25 mph gusts. When the following day turns out to be 5-10 and 2-3 footers, it’s pleasurable, and that’s why it’s called “pleasure” boating.
 
On the day I got caught outside they were calling for 2' seas from the North...

In fairness to NOAA, coming out of Jax it did start out that way...I was a good 1-2 hrs into the trip before conditions kicked up to 4-5 and then 5-6 with the occasional 7-8, taking them on the nose...

It was the only day that I broke my rule about not making plans to meet someone. You see, my parents were driving 1.5 hrs each way to get to Hilton Head, my next stop...

I would have easily slowed down and changed plans perhaps, but even in the best conditions this was 130+ mile trip and 6-7 hrs...So when the weather kicked up, and I was maybe 15 miles offshore, I still had about 5 hrs dealing with it...

I was monitoring it and had conditions worsened I would have scrubbed the mission...But, it would drop back the 4-5 and then pick up again...Repeat....Never what I called dangerous, but always on alert....

Though, when I tell the story of that day, I'm pretty convinced, had I had someone else aboard, They likely wouldn't have been back for another leg...

Life lessons - I ended up taking some minor damage below due to doors opening, etc...

I still remember when I made it into Hilton Head Harbor, the comments were, "you were offshore in this?"....I do have a bit of video footage, but video doesn't do it justice and it's only a short amount as I had to hold on to something the wholw way and I had no one with me to do any video...So that wasn't a priority.

Still would like to know what you diesel guys would do...what choice you would make...I chose to stay on plane, meaning I had a min. cruise of 15-16kts (If memory serves I was doing about 17-18kts)...Otherwise, if I came off plane, I can do maybe 7-8 without pushing too much water...I would have liked to either have been able to do around 12kts off plane or had the confidence that I could adjust quickly getting off plane and back up on plane again...Though in those conditions, I wasn't sure if I brought her down, how easy it would have been to get back on plane...
 
Boat Guy said:
Still would like to know what you diesel guys would do...what choice you would make...I chose to stay on plane, meaning I had a min. cruise of 15-16kts (If memory serves I was doing about 17-18kts)...Otherwise, if I came off plane, I can do maybe 7-8 without pushing too much water...I would have liked to either have been able to do around 12kts off plane or had the confidence that I could adjust quickly getting off plane and back up on plane again...Though in those conditions, I wasn't sure if I brought her down, how easy it would have been to get back on plane...
Click to expand...
If you watched the video I posted above and watched those other three, in each of them I was doing right at 10kts, not on plane obviously, and not pushing a heck of a lot of water. This boat weighs enough that it takes a LOT of wave action to push her around. In those first two videos with the wind on our stbd beam, the boat wasn't bouncing at all and the autopilot did just fine.

Once we turned the corner (videos 3 and 4) in the river and had the waves on our bow the boat was bouncing from the waves, but it wasn't pounding. A heavy boat does help.

That's the first time I've had this boat in waves like that. I wasn't concerned for our safety, even after getting knocked by on my but by the big wave in the video I posted. My wife was down below and called me on my cell phone. She wanted to know "What the hell are you doing up there?"

She wasn't afraid, but was a big part of our decision to turn around and not go through the lock.

It's funny, I grew up spending summers at our cottage on Lake Huron. We didn't have a power boat but several friends did. We thought nothing of being out there in 4' or larger waves in a 16' boat, and did it frequently. I also spent a LOT of time on our 13' Sailfish in waves that big or larger. That's when the sailing got really good.

Now, where we live on the Columbia river, we see most boats scrambling back to the docks when the waves get up to larger than a foot. I guess it's all what you're used to.
 
I'm guessing your hull speed gets you to that 10kts sweet spot...Being a 40ish I'm pushing a lot of water at that speed...If I could do 10kts, I'd probably do it more often...

Though a 5 hr. outside trip can turn into 15hrs at 6-7kts....Big difference...
 
Here’s a sea trial where I did not like how the boat handles.

Little bow flair makes her a wet ride.

She seems under powered returning in following seas.

Bow seems to plow too much for my liking.

 
This is where I grew up. Heading out of Haulover inlet. 110 East takes you to Bimini.
I’ve navigated this inlet since I was 16 years old first in a 17 Mako open fish, straight to Bimini. Trip on a calm day was 2 1/2 hours. Best fishing and lobstering.

Notice the attitude of the bow on this SR. This is how a boat ought to be designed for handling rough water.

 
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