Tri-Cities Water Follies

t.bird

New Member
Jun 23, 2015
11
Kennewick, WA
Boat Info
1984 Sea Ray Monaco with Mercruiser 228
Engines
Mercruiser 228
I know there are a few members on here in the Tri-Cities...and this is the only boat forum I have joined. We are new to the Tri-Cities and I was wondering about anchoring out for the water follies. Growing up we would watch the Madison Regatta on my dad's boat, so I am familiar with the races. How crazy does the river get? We were thinking about anchoring out Friday and maybe Sunday on the Richland side. I have read that Saturday is a mad-house and we would have our twin 2 year olds on the boat on Saturday/Sunday...so we might skip the craziness.
 
:smt009:smt009I anchor on the down river side, its mellow and G rated, most of the time.
We'll be there Saturday and Sunday. I'm in a red 260da named Celestial, feel free to come by if you're on the down river side.
 
We anchor on the down side below the blue bridge turns 1 & 2 center of the river, 2 boats flipped last year and great for the air show. Stop by SS HAWK, flying the Seahawk windsock.
 
t.bird, we usually anchor on the upstream end of the course, near the Benton County side. That way we can sit on the back of the boat to watch the races and we're in the shade of the bimini.

A word or two of caution. You're right about Saturday being the party day, but your kids won't see anything that is R-rated except some small bikinis. 2-year olds wouldn't know X- from PG-rated anyway.

If you want to be away from the "young and foolish" crowd, anchor just a bit upstream from the line that boats can't go beyond. Then you can watch the races, watch the crazies and still have your sanity at the end of the day.

Don't try to anchor anywhere near the middle of the river. It won't work because your anchor won't grab. Where we anchor we're in about 18'-20' of water and the anchor hooks up fairly easily.

I don't know if you launch upstream or downstream from the course, but be aware that they close the course early in the morning. If you're on the 'wrong' end of the course from where you want to be, well too bad.

Also, watch the winds this weekend. Saturday and Sunday there are supposed to be gusts in the 30mph range. If that happens they will postpone the races until Monday.
 
Thanks for the replies! We usually put in at Columbia Point, so will be anchoring upstream. I'm not worried about my boys seeing anything "R-rated", but having two year-olds on board while idiots/drunks are cutting my anchor line or ramming the boat makes me nervous. Thanks for the tips on where to anchor, gofirstclass.
 
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t.bird, I have seen some of that, but they're infrequent, not even once a year, and they most often have happened on Saturday. Saturday is party day and that's for the kind folks who aren't really interested in the races. Oh, and my friends call me GFC. :thumbsup:

SSHAWK, howdy neighbor. C Dock, slip 142.

GO SEAHAWKS!
 
BTW, SSHAWK, I don't know if you've seen it yet, but there is a football thread on CSR that's kind of fun. There are quite a few football guys on here and they seem to fall into two camps: Those who are Seahawk fans and those who wish they didn't live near an NFL team so they could be Hawk fans!

You're in good company on CSR, lots of us Hawk fans on here. This first pic is my house. The next are of the boat decorated for the Christmas boat parade. Sorry about the quality of some of the boat pics. The bad ones were taken after the parade and after a few margaritas.
12.jpg20131213_172353.jpgA20131213_172956.jpgDSCN0112.jpgDSCN0117.jpg
 
We had a decent day on the water. Anchored out from about 10-4. Not a lot of hydroplane action today but the "patriots" jet team were pretty great to watch.

One idiot anchored next to me and tied his anchor to the cleat by his windshield, any time the wind would shift his bow would come about 3 feet from T-boning me. He kept pulling up the slack on his anchor and then letting it back out saying he would "take care of it". I'm not really sure what he was trying to do. We ended up moving upstream 100 yards or so to get away.

We'll probably be back out on Sunday!
 
t.bird, were you on the upstream or downstream end of the course?

I noticed they moved the 'anchor line' on the upstream end about 1/4 mile further from the course. Sucks that they did that.
 
t.bird, were you on the upstream or downstream end of the course? I noticed they moved the 'anchor line' on the upstream end about 1/4 mile further from the course. Sucks that they did that.
We were on the upstream side. Wow, you must have been able to get close in the past. Did the downstream side get moved back as well? Were you out today? I thought I saw a boat that looked similar to yours up against the Kennewick shore. We tried anchoring on the Kennewick side between a couple bigger boats tied together and a small aluminum fishing boat but couldn't get the anchor to set and were a bit too close, so we moved to the Pasco side.
 
t.bird, no, we were not out yesterday and won't be on the boat this weekend for the first time in probably 20+ years. The fact that they moved the 'anchor line' so far away that it makes it hard to see the races, and the prediction for high winds today and tomorrow caused us to cancel taking the boat out this weekend.

We will be watching from the deck at a friends' home. It's on the Pasco side, directly in front of turns 3&4 and has an excellent vantage point. Go Oberto!
 
t.bird, no, we were not out yesterday and won't be on the boat this weekend for the first time in probably 20+ years. The fact that they moved the 'anchor line' so far away that it makes it hard to see the races, and the prediction for high winds today and tomorrow caused us to cancel taking the boat out this weekend. We will be watching from the deck at a friends' home. It's on the Pasco side, directly in front of turns 3&4 and has an excellent vantage point. Go Oberto!
Sounds like a nice view! There was a boat that looked similar to yours yesterday, but seemed a little short.

We will probably still try to go out on Sunday despite the not great view.
 
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We were out yesterday and will be today as well, on the down river side. It was a bit windy yesterday but we got through it.
This is Oberto's last year as sponsors.
 
What an ending to the race. The boat that actually came across the finish line in the Gold Cup race was DQ'd because he'd gone INSIDE one of the buoys on the front straight. That made O Boy Oberto the winner by default.

A great day of racing but kind of a sad way for the final race to end.
 

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