Most hazardous area for navigation in continental US?

[jsc7]

Where I live (Boston Harbor) seems to be a pretty hazardous area for navigation. There are dozens of dangerous ledges and flats (Devil's Back, the Roaring Bulls, etc) combined with a confusing array of different channels and small islands. I would guess that a fair number of vessels run aground every year.

Is there a database or public record of groundings in the continental US? What is the most dangerous area for maritime navigation in the continental US? (defined as a the highest number of groundings divided by the total number of locally based boats)

[sailorboy1]

Having sailed in Boston for 8 years I wouldn’t call it all that dangerous. I think I once read that the most dangerous inlet on the eastern seaboard was the Merrimack going into Newburyport. I would think that somewhere on Coast Gaurd site would be listings. Or BoatUs/Seatow knows.

[Sailmonkey]

I’m not sure the numbers are going to be accurate.

We’ve grounded 4 times in the last two weeks trying to get up an old channel to a quiet anchorage for the night. Not a single one of those was reported.

Unless you’re looking for information that includes groundings of a catastrophic nature. I’ll go out on a limb and presume those are astonishingly low in occurrence.

[hellosailor]

"Not a single one of those was reported."
How many folks are even aware that report are solicited?
Much less where to send them to?
And then again, how many folks just write it off as "thin water, why bother reporting more?"

Seems like the USACE aren't blowing up as much stuff as they used to. Over the years, they've taken a lot of reefs, rocks, ledges, even islands off the charts. Not to mention, what was it, nine acres of river bottom undermined in the Hell's Gate? There's just no Yankee Can Do spirit anymore.

[toddster8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_of_the_Pacific

I think there's a reason that the US Coast Guard put their motor lifeboat school at the Columbia River Bar...

[Sailmonkey]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"Not a single one of those was reported."
How many folks are even aware that report are solicited?
Much less where to send them to?
And then again, how many folks just write it off as "thin water, why bother reporting more?"

Seems like the USACE aren't blowing up as much stuff as they used to. Over the years, they've taken a lot of reefs, rocks, ledges, even islands off the charts. Not to mention, what was it, nine acres of river bottom undermined in the Hell's Gate? There's just no Yankee Can Do spirit anymore.

Our grounding was in a channel that has been an unfunded corps of engineers project for the last 10 years. I could show you the paper trail, but it's not getting dredged any time soon with no commercial interest.

[TrentePieds]

Why would anyone even want to bother to know that? Proper seamanship and adequate knowledge of navigation should enable the skipper, even of a fast boat like a Conquest 315, to stay away from the hazards, thus rendering the question trivial.

TP

[Classicsailboat]

Any highway

[Mr O]

Columbia River bar! It’s one of the nastiest places in the world to be in a boat. Shipwrecks are everywhere.

[Maka]

I agree. Columbia River Bar, Oregon.

Friends squandered a week of their vacation last summer on their 40' sailboat waiting in Astoria for the weather to allow crossing the Bar.

[Suijin]

There are different types of hazards. For boat traffic hazard I would put transiting the CBBT at the mouth of the Chesapeake at night pretty far up the list. Commercial, military, and recreational traffic squeezing through maybe 150 yds. It’s never fun.

[Elie]

Cape Hateras in a blow is not a nice place to be close. Shifting sand banks, shallow water and tide currents and ripe tide makes it a hasardous place. And in a nother, de Gulfstream creates monster standing and breaking seas.

[Scout 30]

Clearly it's John's Pass.

[toddster8]

The Columbia Bar not only has the physical hazards, it has the commercial traffic as well - everyone rushes to get through during the hours that it's open. On top of that, Buoy 10 is the legal border for sport fishing, so on any given weekend, literally hundreds of clueless fishermen are trolling, drifting, and anchored up in hog lines in the middle of the channel. You can't sail through it. You're constantly cranking the wheel left and right to weave a path through all the chaos and still maintain a course toward the safe pass. Incoming ships are blasting on their horns, trying to get boats out of their way. It's a zoo.

For the easily amused: Use ShipFinder or MarineTraffic to zoom in on Astoria during flood tide. You can see the pilot boats hauling ass out to put bar pilots on ships, and take pilots off ships. Then other boats put river pilots on and off. It's like a slow-motion video game. Of course, you can't see all the small fry non-commercial stuff.

[Delancey]

Funny OP. Doubt there is data available to support the suggested metric. In the absence of this my vote for most hazardous area for navigation in the continental US is the Nantuket Shoals. I once chanced a crossing in very fair weather and I have forever since wondered if that was my lucky day to dodge a bullet.

It was the freakiest stretch of water I have ever been on. Really, it was even creepy.

Didn't seem like the worst idea on our approach given the weather but once there I puckered hard and remained completely on edge until we reached deep water again. I will never attempt it again on a monohulled sailboat regardless of time, tide, or weather.

What the man says -

"According to the 2010 edition of the United States Coast Pilot, the International Maritime Organization has established an "area to be avoided" for the Nantucket Shoals. Vessels transporting oil or hazardous materials and vessels of more than 1,000 gross tons should avoid the area bounded by the following points (Note: not for navigational use)"

"Depth soundings are unpredictable due to the constant change caused by strong currents, which are rotary rather than reversing"

Second to this, New York Harbor. Crazy busy.