Mirasol is back in the Atlantic for the first time after her delivery passage from France. We had a fun summer in the Chesapeake Bay, but it was getting cold and it was time to start heading south in search of palm trees and warm beaches.
During the summer in the Chesapeake, our plan for heading down the coast took a radical turn.
Originally, The Plan was to take the Inter-Coastal Waterway from Norfolk, VA to some point south of Hatteras like Beaufort, NC or Moorhead City, NC, and then exit the ICW and shoot down the coast in short 1 or 2 day hops. The ICW, or “The Ditch” is a collection of rivers, lakes, bays and canals which allow transit up and down the entire East Coast of the US without the inconvenience of venturing out into the Atlantic Ocean. The ICW is best suited to power boats since sailing is not possible in the restricted waterways and the ICW is very shallow in many areas. However, in spite of these problems, 95% of sailboats heading up or down the coast use the ICW rather than head out into the Atlantic. This ratio is an estimate from my observations, but I think it’s pretty accurate.
The Plan relied on Mirasol being able to get under the fixed bridges crossing the ICW. According to the manual, Mirasol’s mast is 64’ 9” tall. The published minimum clearance for fixed bridges along the ICW is 65’ at high tide. The Plan was to transit these fixed bridges during low tide. Over the summer, we found there were several flaws in The Plan. One was that our mast height is really 66’ 2” to the top of our instrumentation on the mast, and about 69’ to the top of our VHF antenna. (I climbed to the top to find out). The second big problem is that the tides we had counted on to squeeze under the fixed bridges were only a foot or less at the bridges from Norfolk to Beaufort. So much for The Plan. As the summer turned to fall, the New Plan came together, and caused more than a few raised eyebrows from our new friends in Rock Hall, MD.
No comments:
Post a Comment