ROUTE from FT Lauderdale to New orleans in end of August

[Candyman]

Hello everyone.

My Girlfriend and I are taking possession of a L45 in Ft Lauderdale in coming weeks. We have never sailed before (lots of boating). Looking for any good tips, comments, concerns, etc for a route from Ft Lauderdale to New Orleans la.

We are considering

Ft Lauderdale to key west
Key West to Tampa
Tampa to Apalachicola
Apalachicola to Pensecola
Pensecola to New orleans

Hope to hear from some of you with lots of experience for this route in particular!

Cheers
Sandy & Paul

[leboyd]

Tip: If you haven't sailed and you haven't taken a Coastal Cruising course, hire a skipper for a couple of weeks and have them teach you as much as possible. As was evident from the recent non-forecasted storm Emily that popped up overnight on the W coast of FL. The very first warning was issued after the winds were already 35nmph and she dumped a lot of rain on FL - this time of year, bad weather can come out of nowhere. Not having experience sailing might affect your safety. However, two weeks training will greatly help.

Or maybe even better hire a skipper to sail the first leg or two with you.

[Candyman]

Thanks for the good advice on safety. I understand the weather issues. We are both asa 201-104 certifed and will have another experienced couple with us. But this route is new and we are looking for input on the route, good spots to stop, bad places to skip, etc

Cheers

[Group9]

Suggestion: Learn your mast height and become familiar with what happens if you try and pass under a 65 foot bridge with a 70 foot mast.

[Ndavies]

I have done the trip from Key West to Pensacola several times now. Your route looks generally good, but depending on how much time you have you may be missing some real nice stops. Consider Naples or Venice before Tampa. Also, its quite a long way in to Tampa - stage your Gulf crossing from either Clearwater or Anclote Key to minimize the distance on the Gulf crossing (and Tarpon Springs is a great stop if you have time!).


Here's my strategy for the Gulf crossing - of course there are many ways to think about this, but this is mine:
- leave from Clearwater or Anclote Key
- if there weather is good and you like how things are going, head for Pensacola (likely 2 days, 2 nights)
- if you are not comfortable, have "bail-out options", in case of weather changes, equipment failures etc. These are: Dog Island, Port St. Joe, Panama City, Destin. You can get into all of these on your boat and they make great stops.

Personally I prefer to skip Destin as in the inlet is variable and at this time of year infested by jet skis, Pirate and Dolphin tours etc. If you take a look through our blog, you will see more information on the routes we have taken in the past. Good luck! Let me know if you need an extra hand!
https://midnightsunii.blogspot.com/

Neil

[Ndavies]

- oh, I forgot one thing. When you head west from Pensacola, you must come by and meet us for a drink at Pirates Cove. Its a "must do" stop when heading west from Pensacola!

[captmikem]

Simple and direct, Fll sea buoy to Fowey Rocks, stay close to avoid the stream. Hawk Channel from Fowey to Key West, stop at the tortugas and direct from there to N.O. Keeps you mostly out of problems, other than Hawk Channel navigation is dirt simple (marks to follow in Hawk channel) no worries about bridges tides, etc. and little traffic from Tortugas to N.O. Rigs are well lit and easy to see day and night.

M

[robertk445]

What is depth in Hawks Channel?
L45 draw 5.1" empty.

[Group9]

Originally Posted by Ndavies

- oh, I forgot one thing. When you head west from Pensacola, you must come by and meet us for a drink at Pirates Cove. Its a "must do" stop when heading west from Pensacola!

I don't think an L45 will clear any of the bridges between Pensacola and Mobile Bay. I know some of them have a 70 foot air draft and all three of those ICW bridges are 65 feet IIRC.

[captmikem]

Originally Posted by robertk445

What is depth in Hawks Channel?
L45 draw 5.1" empty.

I have carried 7' through it many times. Could probably carry 8 without a problem.

M

[lesterbutch]

Originally Posted by Candyman

Hello everyone.

My Girlfriend and I are taking possession of a L45 in Ft Lauderdale in coming weeks. We have never sailed before (lots of boating). Looking for any good tips, comments, concerns, etc for a route from Ft Lauderdale to New Orleans la.

We are considering

Ft Lauderdale to key west
Key West to Tampa
Tampa to Apalachicola
Apalachicola to Pensecola
Pensecola to New orleans

Hope to hear from some of you with lots of experience for this route in particular!

Cheers
Sandy & Paul

Dependent upon vessel size You could take the Okeechobee waterway, it literally cuts off hundreds of miles, however you need to check current restrictions. It's been a long time since I ran it and there are definite restrictions to height of mast, ( it used to be 55') and draft, I think it used to be 9' but was in reality more like 6'!

[hellosailor]

Someone recently had posted a number of problems they had with a new delivery, so regardless of the dealer and the maker? You might want to keep a list of dealers along the route, and how to arrange stops if you need to have new boat problems corrected in the first couple of days. Or, plan to spend three or four days going north then doubling back past Fort Laud to Miami to give yourself some shake-down days while still being near the delivering dealer. (I know one very respected yard that literally installed half the winches on a boat backwards, apparently no one realized port/starboard self-tailers get put in "opposite".)
Gives you time to do some casual food shopping and get used to the boat before you're "out there" with fewer choices.

[Dave22q]

You can save significant miles by going through Marathon under the 7mile bridge. Your planned route sounds OK but the individual legs are very long. You need to plan anchoring unless you plan going 24 hours. Given your experience level, I would not advise doing that. As others have noted you need to closely watch thw weather and stop over as needed.

[kelbylinn]

You may find depth problems around anclote Key and Tarpon Springs. You are good out of Clearwater though. We took our trawler direct from the Manatee River (Twin Dolphin Marina) at Bradenton to Dog Island (Carrabelle, Fl) and anchored there, from there you have good outside choices with plenty of emergency stops if necessary. A former poster is absolutely right about the pop up storms in the Gulf this time of year. We live on Dauphin Island, AL and extremely careful this time of year. Good luck with your new boat and on the trip!

[Snore]

Originally Posted by Candyman

Hello everyone.



My Girlfriend and I are taking possession of a L45 in Ft Lauderdale in coming weeks. We have never sailed before (lots of boating). Looking for any good tips, comments, concerns, etc for a route from Ft Lauderdale to New Orleans la.



We are considering



Ft Lauderdale to key west

Key West to Tampa

Tampa to Apalachicola

Apalachicola to Pensecola

Pensecola to New orleans



Hope to hear from some of you with lots of experience for this route in particular!



Cheers

Sandy & Paul

For a competent crew this is doable. For newbies it has some issues. These are long legs. Some through some heavy traffic areas. Are you having an AIS transponder installed? Have you budgeted time to do acceptance testing of the boats and time for them to fix what they did wrong?

As August wears on the higher the odds of TS, TD or hurricane goes up. Weather would be my bigger fear. IMHO- I would wait for a solid weather window and haul a@@ to NO.

If you would like help with moving your boat, please contact me via PM.