Small Craft Advisory...

[OBXTucker]

Decided to take the extended family on an abbreviated weekend cruise over the last couple of days. I checked the weather on Thursday afternoon and NOAA had posted SCA's for most of the Chesapeake. Same report on Friday morning (2' - 3' with winds 15 - 20 knots).

I decided to go for it and we arrived at the boat about 5:00pm Friday evening and cast the lines around 6:00 from Jackson Creek/Piankatank River. Cruised north to St. Mary's River off the Potomac and arrived about 11:00pm. All I can say is that NOAA totally got the forecast wrong! What a beautiful night for a cruise. Dead calm seas, not a cloud in the sky!

Saturday was more of the same. The bay was like GLASS! Wind picked up cruising back into Jackson Creek (of course it would when it's time to dock!), but otherwise a beautiful weekend on the water - and a great first cruise for 5 family members that had never been before.

Planning another one this weekend to Norfolk!

 

[OBXTucker]

 

[spartonboat1]

Decided to take the extended family on an abbreviated weekend cruise over the last couple of days. I checked the weather on Thursday afternoon and NOAA had posted SCA's for most of the Chesapeake. Same report on Friday morning (2' - 3' with winds 15 - 20 knots).

I decided to go for it and we arrived at the boat about 5:00pm Friday evening and cast the lines around 6:00 from Jackson Creek/Piankatank River. Cruised north to St. Mary's River off the Potomac and arrived about 11:00pm. All I can say is that NOAA totally got the forecast wrong! What a beautiful night for a cruise. Dead calm seas, not a cloud in the sky!

Saturday was more of the same. The bay was like GLASS! Wind picked up cruising back into Jackson Creek (of course it would when it's time to dock!), but otherwise a beautiful weekend on the water - and a great first cruise for 5 family members that had never been before.

Planning another one this weekend to Norfolk!

After last year, I believe NOAA is an acronym for "Not Often Actually Accurate". Their forecasts bounced around like a ping pong ball last Fall (Great Lakes), then were wrong. Ironically, in some cases, they actually changed the report of conditions "after the fact". Lamentably, I was the 'beneficiary' of their bad forecast and my worse judgement one weekend, documented here. Gets scarier the more I remember it!

 

[Bob Bradley]

I went offshore to the canyons off Montauk last Labor Day. NOAA called for 3 -5 increasing to 5 - 7 overnite then laying down in the morning. They got the first 2/3 of the forecast correct. The laying down part turned into 30kt northeast winds blowing the tops off of 15 - 20' waves. Sitting in my FB seat, I was looking UP at cresting waves in front of me. We were 60 miles offshore at this point. Thank God we were in a Hatteras.

 

[Genesis]

NOAA's wave forecasts around here are best interpreted as METERS instead of feet, and you'll be close a good percentage of the time.

1-3' is thus best interpreted as quite possibly 1-3 METERS, and if you're prepared for that, you're good.

 

[spartonboat1]

NOAA's wave forecasts around here are best interpreted as METERS instead of feet, and you'll be close a good percentage of the time.

1-3' is thus best interpreted as quite possibly 1-3 METERS, and if you're prepared for that, you're good.

Unfortuneately, not too far from the truth!

 

[TopHattandTails]

ahh - but isn't it great when they scare everyone else off of the water and you catch a nice flat day all by yourself! Plus - isn't a SCA the same a say "its Hatteras Weather"?

 

[spartonboat1]

I went offshore to the canyons off Montauk last Labor Day. NOAA called for 3 -5 increasing to 5 - 7 overnite then laying down in the morning. They got the first 2/3 of the forecast correct. The laying down part turned into 30kt northeast winds blowing the tops off of 15 - 20' waves. Sitting in my FB seat, I was looking UP at cresting waves in front of me. We were 60 miles offshore at this point. Thank God we were in a Hatteras.

Bob: I could not find your vessel in the Owners postings. What Hatt were you/are you running? 15-20's...oh, eewww...not fun. Hope you were able to run into them.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

Bob: I could not find your vessel in the Owners postings. What Hatt were you/are you running? 15-20's...oh, eewww...not fun. Hope you were able to run into them.

His profile says 43C

 

[OBXTucker]

ahh - but isn't it great when they scare everyone else off of the water and you catch a nice flat day all by yourself! Plus - isn't a SCA the same a say "its Hatteras Weather"?

You got that right!
We saw MAYBE 4 other boats and 3 tankers the entire 5 hours Saturday. The picture above was just north of Windmill Point about 1pm.

Of course, when we turned into the Piankatank, we encountered no less than 30 blow boats starting a regatta.....took up the entire entrance of the river. You should have seen them scatter when we turned to Starboard! The only way to have avoided them, would have been a "full stop", and that wasn't going to happen! Yeah yeah, I know they're under sail and have the ROW, but I had no where to give way to 30 of them, so decided to zig zag through.....they were nervous wrecks!

 

[Nonchalant1]

If you haven 't done it, a great 4 day cruise from there would be to Tangier Island and then to the very quaint little St. Michaels (nice little anchorage right outside of town harbor entrance) and back. It'd be 30 miles to Tangier, then about 80 to St. Michaels, 60 back to the Solomons and then 65 back home. The weekend version would be 110 miles back home from St. Michaels on Sunday, which may be too long a day for some.

Doug

 

[Bob Bradley]

Bob: I could not find your vessel in the Owners postings. What Hatt were you/are you running? 15-20's...oh, eewww...not fun. Hope you were able to run into them.

Yup. 1979 43C. We were quartering into them off the stbd bow.

We were so far out, and it was so rough, at first we just said f-it and put a spread out and trolled north. Managed to pick up 2 nice YFT and an Albacore, and came up tight for a short period on a white marlin.

Once we had been trolling north a few hours, we picked up and headed for the barn. I slowly increased the speed looking for a comfort zone and was very much surprised to find the boat ran just fine at cruising rpm of around 2050. We ran up one side at about 12kts and down the other at around 20. I let the autopilot steer me, and only twice did we stuff the bow into a trough.

Mind you, I'd never go out in stuff like that, but having been through it once, I sure did get a new apprecation for the boat.

 

[spartonboat1]

Yup. 1979 43C. We were quartering into them off the stbd bow.

We were so far out, and it was so rough, at first we just said f-it and put a spread out and trolled north. Managed to pick up 2 nice YFT and an Albacore, and came up tight for a short period on a white marlin.

Once we had been trolling north a few hours, we picked up and headed for the barn. I slowly increased the speed looking for a comfort zone and was very much surprised to find the boat ran just fine at cruising rpm of around 2050. We ran up one side at about 12kts and down the other at around 20. I let the autopilot steer me, and only twice did we stuff the bow into a trough.

Mind you, I'd never go out in stuff like that, but having been through it once, I sure did get a new apprecation for the boat.

Amen...one of the few stable platforms left in this modern products life!

 

[Canuck Dennis]

When the wind is blowing the tops of 15-20 ft waves you don't surf down one side and cruise up the other. Been there too many times and a 43 will not do well in those conditions, sorry Bob...

 

[yachtbrokerguy]

When the NOAA forecast calls for 2-3 just add two to three to get five or 3-5added together makes eight and so on.

 

[Bob Bradley]

When the wind is blowing the tops of 15-20 ft waves you don't surf down one side and cruise up the other. Been there too many times and a 43 will not do well in those conditions, sorry Bob...

Yea, I made the whole thing up just to impress you dennis.

 

[chris piazza]

This is what the USCC calls 1-3's on Lake Superior

 

[spartonboat1]

This is what the USCC calls 1-3's on Lake Superior

Yow...I know Lk Superior can easily get that bad...seen it a lot worse than the picture... but is that really a Laker up on Superior? Looks like the conditions that took down the Fitzgerald- running before heavy seas with boarding waves as they run up on your stern. Impressive picture!

 

[spartonboat1]

When the wind is blowing the tops of 15-20 ft waves you don't surf down one side and cruise up the other. Been there too many times and a 43 will not do well in those conditions, sorry Bob...

I may get flamed for this, but Hatteras home office agreed that 15-20's on the Great Lakes is very troublesome, maybe dangerous and severe due to the waves steepness. But 15-20's on the Ocean are not too bad for a Hatt, not that it isn't significant. In any event, I would prefer to 'be in' under either conditions.

 

[Canuck Dennis]

There is a massive difference between 15-20 ft Swells vs waves, swells can be ridden out with a 15 ft whaler, but that size wave will over come a 50 ft boat if it loses power, seas that are equal to 20% of the water line length of a vessel will capsize it if broadside due to power loss or steering attitude, you will probably discover that it is very difficult to accurately judge the size of waves,

a sea that has 15-20 ft swells that are above 10-14 seconds apart is an "easy" sea, shorten that up when the tops start coming off the waves and you have pending disaster.

I was northbound (twice) on the Oregon coast from Mexoco when the 20 ft swells started to change. to "seas", everyone ran for cover, 100 ft Burgers and the fishing fleet headed for port. Our 70ft did the same, port bound for 3 days.

Just my 2c, I try to stay away for anything over 8 ft on my 70 ft, and 5 ft on my 42 Hatt.