Handling tide rips and general rough water

[GreggL]

Originally Posted by mrohr

Gregg:both the race and plum gut are humbling.Get a copy of Eldridge and look at the charts for the 12 hour tidal cycle (snapshots for each hour). avoid going thru at max flood and max ebb,but a fair tide is best.If any wind > say 10 kts the chop is increased and things start to get scary.I've been thru all the 3 mentioned in the posts numerous times and agree with Curmudgeon that the Watch hill passage has lesser currents and might be a better way toB.I. but will take you too far East to get you into all the good things behind Plum Gut. The ride thru the race is longer but if you catch the beginning of the ebb you will save any easy hour or more in your run to BI. Plum gut is a shorter ride but the currents seem to run diagonally thru it so I favor the Plum Is side to keep from being swept onto the shoals on the LI side Check your charts carefully ,esp. depths, and catch a fair tide and you will be thu into more open water in less than 30 mins.either direction. Lotsa ferries going thru both of these cuts so they will show you the way before you are flushed thru! I use the concept of "staging area" to await a chance to get thru these difficult areas or for waiting for a favorable weather system before an offshore passage. Duck Is roads is my choice of where to wait for your tide going East thru the gut ;going West ,try Orient Hbr. For the Race ,best is West Hbr on Fishers Is. if going East ;andEast Hbr. if you need to use the Watch Hill Passage. TheWatch Hill passage would be your choice route back to LIS via Fishers Is sound if you miss a fair tide going west from BI.-----------Do your homework and lets us know how it goes----Mike

Thanks. Where would I find the watch hill passage? If that's easier per se then I'm all for it. Do I have to time this like the gut?

[GreggL]

Originally Posted by GreggL

Thanks. Where would I find the watch hill passage? If that's easier per se then I'm all for it. Do I have to time this like the gut?

Actually I just realized that watch hill is way to far east for where I'm headed. I'm traveling from NYC to sag harbor so I believe plum gut is my shortest and best route, but I'm certainly open to suggestions. Half the advice I get says the gut is nothing to fear so long as you time correctly, others scare the stuff out of me. Easiest route and timeframe through would be very helpful. Thanks again!

[Capt Phil]

cwyckham... thanks for posting the trip down memory lane of the Skookumchuck Rapids. Spent many years towing logs and commercial fishing around the Egmont area and learned at an early age how to handle bringing a seineboat and tugboat through that area and the Yulcata Rapids further north.
I'd never be able to put the technique into words like Andrew and Dockhead did above but reading their posts made sense to me.
I recall seeing the tugboat flip on U-tube a while back and pulling barges out of Porpoise Bay is always problematic. Never had a mishap but scared the **** out of myself several times. Ernie Silvey, an old skipper from Egmont, was the master of those rapids and I was fortunate to have him as a teacher and mentor when I was a young deckhand living and working up there back in the 50's and 60's. You learned how to use the tides, eddies and back currents to haul log booms and barges all over that area as well as save fuel commercial fishing... thanks again for the videos! Capt Phil

[billr]

Gregg,
Your are gettting a lot of good knowledge here on a very complex situation. If you were to become a white water river runner, you would know a lot about boating in moving water. But when you get to moving water in ocean entries, its sometimes like having to deal with several rivers coming together, super-imposed on open-ocean swells plus winds all at the same time. You can read many books, and do thousands of river miles to get a good understanding on this. Or, you can wait until slack water when the tides are changing, which will allow you to go when the conditions are reasonable. That is always the best. But be sure to pay attention to local knowledge on the area you are in.
Billr.