Sailing without depth sounder?

[Notyetsinking]

Originally Posted by LouK

If you’re familiar with the Chesapeake, then you’ll know that one could walk about 2/3’s of the way across it. There are plenty of places where the depth a mile out from shore is only a couple if feet deep. Also 7’-6” is considered by some fairly deep for the Chessie.

That said, with a decent chart plotter or app on an ipad, I’d probably go. Hopefully you either have a dingy to kedge off or BoatUS.

We are certainly limited in some aspects by our draft; we can't 'gunkhole' or go far up shallow creeks. However, we almost always have enough wind to sail, and can go further than most sailboats would think of in a weekend. For us, that trade off is worth it.