53 miles in C16 in one day?

[InertBert]

I am planning on sailing from Anna Maria to Anclote River on June 29th.  I would like your advice and expertise about this trip.  And even a first mate if anyone wants to join with, it will be much easier/safer with two people

I will leave out of Anna Maria Island once it is light enough to safely launch and navigate.  The crossing the bay by Egmont Key will likely be the biggest wind, I will tackle that early in the morning.  There are plenty of refuge ports between Anna Maria and Madeira, but once you pass Madiera, you have all the way to Clearwater until you can get back inside the intracoastal.  A solid weather call will need to be made at Madiera because it is a point of commitment.  Once past Honeymoon, I'll likely turn inside Caledesi Island and cut through the anchorage toward shore, skirt past Howard park and join the Anclote river where my wife will be waiting with the trailer.  

I will pre-chart all of my failsafe retreat points with adequate bridge heights and available boat ramps.  I will monitor the weather closely for the week or so leading up to that day (actually I always monitor the weather) to get a feel for the likelyhood of a summer storm.  I have no ego about finishing a trip, and I am ready and willing to pull the plug if it starts to look dangerous or uncomfortable.  I know 53 miles is a ton to cover in a single day, and not possible without favorable winds/currents, but I am willing to put in a long day and come up short of the final destination.  I know this doesn't sound like a huge, epic voyage(it isn't), but I have a nice opportunity for the trip and its rare for a trailer sailor to start in one city and end your day in another.

If you guys know the waters and have any advice, please reply.  If you want to join me and spend a long day in the hot sun on a cramped boat, you're crazy(like me) but please reply.  If you will be out in those waters anyway, lets link up and caravan for a few miles, or just wave to me as you pass by.

[NateD]

That's 53 miles as the crow flies? If you face any kind of headwind, that will add roughly 40% more miles. How much do you plan to motor? Do you have a reliable self-steering system (for both sail and motor)? You could easily motor it in a day, or with a favorable wind (both strength and direction) and not much swell/wave action, its doable by sail. Either way, if you do it single hand, one of the hardest parts will be fighting the exhaustion and monotony of being on the tiller for 10+ hours unless you've got some way to self steer.

When I have tried to plan long distance sails where I leave from a specific location with the goal of reaching another specific location on a specific day, it has only worked out about 1/3 of the time. The other times I had to motor for most of the trip due to a lack of wind or head winds/waves that I just couldn't make any progress in. Although these have all been on lakes and rivers where the wind pattern isn't reliable or consistent day to day.

[frank]

Be watching "Wind Finder.com" and "Passage Weather.Com" for the days leeding up to leaving. Do not leave unless the weather looks stable.  Have lots of little snacks and drinks. I find those lil juice boxs great when I'm on a long solo. A "pee bottle" is handy as well. A battery FM radio makes for decent company and won't hog your snacks. Have fun

[InertBert]

Nate: Its 53 miles according to that Google Earth path in the image above.  I've got no self-steering on this boat at all.  I've typically used a giant bungee as a cajun tiller tamer if I need to go up front, but that really only works well in very consistent wind and for very short periods.  What are other people using on these boats?

Thanks Frank for those wind websites, I hadn't come across those before.  I typically use http://graphical.weather.gov/sectors/tbw.php for my sailing weather.

[ribbed_rotting_rusting]

That wind finder site is great. Historical data, temp, cloud cover, barometric pressure, wind speed, expected gusts, rain, in a format that you can change. I realize this is info NOAA gives but it does seem to be in a greater " user friendly" set up.

I wish you luck, we here in the  Great Lakes  area (actually 55 F ) are green with envy. Though the repairs and improvements can commence on the actual boat instead of parts and pieces that fit in my basement.

[Billy]

It took me 6.5 hours to sail a 27' boat from downtown St. Pete to Clearwater beach.

I've sailed my 19from the Boat ramp next to Hooters on the Cotee to the South End of anclote key in about 4-5 hours.and from Anclote to Clearwater Beach in about 4-5 hours.

Both with favorable winds. So I would say, it is doable but painful. Any head wind and forget it. East wind would be favorable.

St. Johns pass has some insane currents when the tide goes in and out and I would not attempt to duck in there unless conditions were perfect. And then in that case, why would you need to hide out?

[NateD]

What are other people using on these boats?

I think most are basically tying off the tiller, either with a homemade setup, or a purchased tiller tamer. It generally works for short periods of time, it's what I did on my CP16. My 23 came with a Raymarine ST1000 tiller pilot. Expensive, but worth it if you can swing it.

[InertBert]

Well, I am still alive.  I left out from Anna Maria at dawn and made a good clip north across the bay.  The wind was 15 kts from the SW with big rolling waves at our aft quarter.  I was watching all of the spotty storm cells pop up and disappear like ghosts of whack-a-mole but more rainy.  

I had the main reefed in and the small jib when the first rain cell hit us.  The rain poured on us literally like someone was emptying buckets on our heads.  I s'pose at this point I should explain that I had recruited a distant relative of mine from Norway to sail with me.  He works on oil rigs and spent much of the morning struggling through broken english to explain that he had seen 30 m waves in the north sea.  There were a few gusts and stiff blows in the rain cell, I would guess about 25 kts max(which I am learning not to scoff at).  The first one was over as fast as it had hit us and we kept up our good pace, making 5.5-6kts with the wind and tide at our tail.  

The second one hit us head on.  It looked to be a much taller anvil cloud so we rolled in the main all the way and got soaked again with just the jib up.  The waves were growing and I was starting to really squeeze the hell out of the tiller.  Sten (the Norwegian cousin) kept stepping up onto the cabin roof and holding the mast, and I kept worrying my ass off, thinking he was going to get thrown into the water.  Maybe that bravado comes from viking heritage or decades of "commuting" to work across an icy north Atlantic, either way, I'd like to have an ounce of it please.  

Well, as the second rain cell was dissipating and the howling of the wind was resorting back to a level that didn't sting your eyes, Sten got bored of standing on the deck and came back and joined me shivering in the cockpit.  We had a few hundred yards of reprieve before the next wall of rain and wind hit us.  The lightning is a lot scarier when you are soaking wet and can't see shore, and the long roll of the thunder was a convincing argument that we should find a drier hobby.  We decided to turn back to the south and head for the Cabbage Key/Mullet Key pass into the intercoastal.  I turned our heading and Sten secured the anchor line to the bow and laid the anchor and line neatly on the cabin floor "just in case".  The third cell wasn't just a cell but was the main storm body.  It got to us before we were able to get to the channel and without visibility of the sandbars we were running by compass heading and the sound of breakers.  I felt pretty helpless to maintain the attitude of the boat in those waves and we were dragged toward the breakers.  With the waves breaking on the sandbar nearby, and my trolling motor and jib fighting well above their weight class in those waves, I told Sten to toss the anchor and we'd wait for a calm to head for the channel.  The anchor line promptly wrapped around the trolling motor but in panic and haste I find that I can undo a situation from wrapping itself around a motor in less time than it takes to read this sentence.  

So then we find ourselves in the pouring (if you know Florida rain) rain, anchored with our bow into the waves, awkwardly close to this sandbar where the waves are starting to break, and what would you guess happens then?  After probably twenty minutes I noticed that the anchor was dragging and we were getting farther into the breakers.  I waited, thinking that there would be a calm in the waves before we got to the worst of it and I could pull the anchor and run for the channel.  Well, the breakers came and the calm didn't.  We were in the thick of the break with 4-5 ft (hey thats a pretty big wave for a 16 ft boat) breakers crashing down on top of the deck and rolling back into the cockpit.  Sten readied himself to pull the anchor and I manned the tiller, when the time was right, he lifted the hooks from the sand and I spun the little boat on its heels to put its ass end to the waves and run through the surf.  I was able to make the turn before the next breaker caught me with my pants down and we rode the crests in toward the shallows.  A brief few dozen yards and the water was sandy and shallow, the waves greatly diminished, I turned perpendicular and ran across the small and shallow surf until I found a way through the sandbar and before we could take another breath, we were safe in the channel.  

We hoisted the main (reefed to half) and boogied our way over to the Ft. DeSoto boat ramp at well above 6 kts.  Sten gave a master class of how to stop a boat within inches of a dock in big wind and we tied off.  We found enough shelter to unseal our precious iPhones from their protective waterproof cocoons and arrange for transportation.  Sten fled in his rental car with his mum looking to shop for inexpensive American woodworking tools.  A firm handshake and a pat on the shoulder accompanied my thanks to him and his thanks to me.  We likely won't meet again for a decade at least.  My ride with the truck and trailer was a few hours away.  I contemplated waiting out the storm and checked every radar app on my phone.  Ultimately I came to the conclusion that it was storming and lightning and I was immediately convinced that a nap on the boat at the dock was a better plan than trying not to drown while swimming back from my sunken boat a few miles offshore.  Retrospectively, the boat was actually very stable and composed, even in the roughest waves, and my adrenaline levels were certainly due more to my own shortcomings than the boat's.

The long story short is that I didn't make it to my destination.  I did have a very fun bay crossing, I averaged over 5kts moving speed for the day with a max of 9.5(gps error or really big surf?), I learned a few more stupid things to NOT do in rough weather, and I got to know a distant cousin who daydreams about sailing across to Denmark on his free weekends.  Did I reach my goal?  No.  Do I consider it a successful trip?  Hard to say.  Was it fun?  Yes, yes indeed.  

[crazycarl]

awesome read, thank you for sharing this.

this is the type of adventure that only comes with piloting a small boat.


carl

[NateD]

Sounds like it was fun, glad you gave it a shot!

[kahpho]

Wow, very well written IBert. Suspense, humor, adventure... you may well have missed your true calling! Someone give that man a dram of whatever he wants!

I noticed, with some appreciation, the mention of lessons learned of what not to do. I've always considered those lessons among the most important in life. I'm still learning too.

mel

[Harrier]

Go read.  Cant wait for the next chapter!