Scary journey - advice please!!!

[JimmyDubai]

Folks, I need your advice on the situation below:

The marinas in our area planned a rally to The World Island and a total of 46 boats departed with no issues.... nice weather, great bunch of people, lots of happy families ( I will post some pictures once I get the chance).
I was among a group of 10 boats going at around 8 knots on the canal and once we were in open seas everybody took off (including me) to reach a speed of about 22-24 knots. I had 6 adults and two children on board my 290 Sundancer. All of a sudden I was trapped between the wake of the boats in front of me and the boat listed first to the right and then to the left n a very dangerous way. The only action I took was to ask the passengers to move to the other side of the boat just to counter balance the effect of the wake. Children crying, adults a bit nervous until finally we reached a slower pace and all was fine afterwards.

Lessons learnt from me:
1. It is very easy to get into trouble at sea
2. Other than moving the load from one side to the other, I should have taken another action on the helm, for instance getting out of that area by crossing the wake at 45 deg bt I did nothing; I was sort of petrified but I did not panic.

What else should have I done? Any recommendations?. My experience at sea counts only less than 100 hours just for your records so I am still learning, sometimes the hard way.

Thanks

 

[FootballFan]

Things can happen really fast. I would have probably tried to find a path to stable water without having passengers move, rather stay in place.

Hard to say though, until you are "in that situation". Lots of time to second guess now.

Key take way, you will always know the situation you are in can change in a moments notice.

Mark

 

[Fred]

Slowing down always helps.
Trimming the drive out slightly at higher speeds also helps.

 

[JimG]

It's difficult to second guess when not in the moment... but three things come to mind. 1) Back off the throttle and fall behind, 2) Use your trim tabs to balance out, and 3) Cross the wake and proceed directly behind the boat in front of you. I don't think having passengers moving around in these situations is a good idea... they should keep their seat and hold on.

Possible preventative measures for these situations:
Make sure your passengers and gear are balanced before you depart.
If you're not the lead boat, stay directly behind one of the leaders.

 

[CliffA]

Slowing down always helps

^^^^this....if you start to get in trouble just slow down as long as it is safe to do so....I don't have any experience in open seas but I have come across some issues similar on an inland lake when there is wind and a lot of boat traffic.....

cliff

 

[fwebster]

Losing control of your boat can be scary, particularly when those aboard get scared and frantic. Speed is almost never your friend, so this is second guessing you from thousands of miles away, but slowing down until the pack of boats settles into the trip and get separated by a little distance and begin to fall in behind each other will help. You can then find a bigger boat running about the same speed so you can stay centered in his wake which keeps you in control and will calm things down.

Also chasing the boats attitude by trimming the tabs/outdrive can actually make your situation worse because no matter how you compensate for the boats attitude, the wakes on either side of you that make your boat act like it is possessed by the devil are constantly changing. Chasing that situation with trim is like aiming at a moving constantly changing target and will actually make the instability situation worse.

 

[CAMELLA]

Like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t75zFhFn8TU

 

[Lazy Daze]

Granted this is hindsight and armchair quarterbacking, but the best way to "fix" that situation is to not get in it in the first place. Get in the habit of looking ahead - way ahead - and planning out what you're going to do "if". But, hey, we've all been in hairy situations that seemed to appear from nowhere and a couple larger boats throwing converging waves on you can be a bit daunting. In this case, I think the biggest thing you can take away from this is experience. You now know what those crossing wakes can do and you're doing the right thing in researching what you could do in the future.

So, what could you do? While there's a lot of variables at play here (and every situation can be different so it may not be fair of me to try and completely tell you what to do), if we forget about the "plan ahead" stuff, then I think slowing down (not too much - you still want good steering control) and turning into one of the wakes at a 45*-ish angle (like you mentioned) would be good. One thing you want to be careful of is "planting" your bow into a wake. Drop your throttle to somewhere in the 1500-2000 range, lift your tabs out of the way and keep the drive trimmed up a bit (but then stop messing with them). This will keep your bow a little higher. But you don't want it TOO high as you still want the bow keel to be breaking through the waves since it cuts through better than the keel amidships or astern. Keep your hand on the throttle and adjust as you go. If it looks like the bow is going to be too low, a quick burst of throttle will raise it up. If you don't feel you have time to bring the tabs up, forget about them as they'll have minimal effect at low speeds, anyways. The drives will have more of an effect - but even those are secondary to speed.

You're still going to rock-n-roll, but it won't be as bad and it certainly won't feel as bad to your passengers. And I'll "ditto" the points above about keeping your passengers seated. The last thing you want is someone moving around while the boat is a rockin'.

Here's something you can do to practice... Go out and make some waves - make some tight circles - then quickly shoot out and back into them and practice going through them at different pitch attitudes and RPM. In other words... go have some fun and experiment!

 

[HUMPH]

Like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t75zFhFn8TU

Yeah, that will make you clinch your cheeks! I was coming back from SF in September and there were probably 100 boats coming back from their club's "stag cruise" to an island in the Delta (no women allowed). These boats went from 40' to over 85' and didn't follow each other well so we were catching waves from all directions. Coming under one bridge, I caught the wake from the 460DA I was following, another boat we had just passed then had a handful of 45' to 65' boats coming at us throwing monster wakes. The boat handles it fine but we started tracking different wake patterns so I slowed a bit, threw them a larger wake and waited until the water stopped looking like a washing machine!

Never move ballast (passengers) in an attempt to level the boat. They move starboard and you catch a wave from your port that wasn'5 expected, you may be plucking folks out of the water!

 

[rcknecht]

I would first trim down for more control... Speed sometimes is needed for stability... The boat can always handle the rough waters better than the passengers... Try to remain calm, and comfort your crew...

 

[BleednBlue]

Like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t75zFhFn8TU

Ha, any given summer weekend at LOTO. Seriously though, what I do in this situation is first slow down. The second move I make is to get the extreme "outside". When on the outside the wake from each boat beat at each other - kind of like they are canceling each other out. Don't get me wrong the extreme outside is still rough but more manageable - imho.

 

[JimmyDubai]

Like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t75zFhFn8TU

Oh man!!that was a serious wake!!Compared to that, my experience seems to be trivial!!Just joking.....it was actually serious!

Great advice from you all; I would be happy if I had slowed down and either get out to calm waters on right or left or followed a larger boat behind at safe distance.

Will play over the weekend!!. Actually I have visitors from Florida landing on Friday for two weeks so plenty of chances to practice

 

[Gimme Time]

Second to alcohol, speed is your number one enemy. That can happen in a trawler at 10 knots when 2 would be better, as well as 22knts. First and foremost back it down but don't have people moving your load around till you are back at a snails pace.

Just St finished in May the Great Loop and I'm going to say 90% of the boats that got into trouble were going faster than they knew where they were. I saw several trawlers with bent props more so than I would have thought and being in the wrong place more often than not wouldn't have happened if they checked and double check where they were.

I trawled and crusied st 18-20kntd and did not hesitate to back it down and make sure I knew where I was and where I should be as the entire 7,000+ miles we traveled during this adventure were new to me or had been years since I'd been through there before.

A good old friend was following me once to a place we'd both been to before n the channel I looked back and he was off to my port side by 50' +- and out of the narrow channel we we in. I asked what his was doing and he said he was following the track he had laid down the last time he had been there. I stated that I was in the channel marked by the bouts and that was where the channel was now not two years ago. Ya gotta keep your head up and anticipate what could may happen before it does and prevent it as that is your number hero e job IMHO.

 

[Billfletcher]

Also chasing the boats attitude by trimming the tabs/outdrive can actually make your situation worse because no matter how you compensate for the boats attitude, the wakes on either side of you that make your boat act like it is possessed by the devil are constantly changing. Chasing that situation with trim is like aiming at a moving constantly changing target and will actually make the instability situation worse.

As noted, hard to say w/o being there, but I think Frank's comments are good. The last thing I would do is start with messing with tabs or drives.

 

[JVM225]

That's a common problem around here in crowded, but narrow channels that are not restricted to 5 MPH. Especially when you get an inconsiderate boater who can't see over the top of the beer can he's chugging from as he swamps you.
Coming off plane to idle speed would probably get you out of immediate danger. Then once the other boats settle in to a steady course and speed you could pick you spot where your ride will be smoother.

 

[Creekwood]

My advice is never run at high speed in a crowd of boats throwing large v wakes. If they are all in a direct line with lots of space in between that may be ok. But a crowd of many boats taking off and passing and running beside eachother creates a dangerous combination of wakes that makes steering difficult and can easily throw you into the path of another vessel. Just don't do it.

 

[juggernaut1]

Like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t75zFhFn8TU

Or more like this? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8EXRhzLwQl0 :smt101

 

[JimmyDubai]

Umm.. I've seen this one... crazy!!

Pics will follow...

Nothing like that

 

[Strecker25]

Or more like this? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8EXRhzLwQl0 :smt101

I feel bad laughing at it, but the way the captain goes down in slow motion gets me every time.

 

[JimmyDubai]

This was our weekend journey from the Creek Marina to the North Pole Island (The World Islands); it wasn't freezing though No pictures from the moment in despair....