Another Keel Lost; Another Capsize

[tdoster]

Here is what burns me. This couple received over 15K in donations and the damn boat is still a very bad hazard to navigation just under the water now at green marker #3. Everyone has an opinion on this pass, but I live here, it is a tricky pass, but not terrible if you know what you are doing and watch the tides. About 30 sailboats go through the pass on a good weekend without issue. Welcome to Florida, shoals constantly move and the best advise I can give anyone is use the Navionics map and follow the depths, do not use any other chart and don't follow the marked channel. We upload our soundings after each trip as do many others. Also, after 30 years of sailing, I am smart enough not to go in a pass like John's Pass or most any other in Florida without local knowledge and that I learned in the first two weeks. But now I have through two bridges to get out since I am not willing to risk hitting their boat.

This is speculation, but from what I hear, they sunk because they have a swing keel that was down at the time and that was the only object they hit. I could be wrong, but will make it a point to be there when they drop it at a yard off a barge.

Tanner Broadwell clean up your mess. There are plenty of salvage crews in the area. If anyone hits your boat and sinks, You will find the cruising community is not going to be friendly knowing you left it and had the funds to clean it up.

As of 2/19/2018 your boat is just under the water at Marker #3 waiting to sink another boat.

[tdoster]

Originally Posted by bill352

The G"3" is definitely on the wrong side of the channel. I have no first-hand knowledge of this, but my guess is that the CG quite properly moved the marker because of the encroaching shoal, but forgot to move or erase the dotted line marking the channel on the chart.

I also found an older copy of the chart showing G"3" on the correct side of the marked channel. Part of it got changed, part didn't.

Check out the CG Notice to Mariners. Look at the Navionics Sounder Charts online. The marker is moved to mark the encroaching shoal and is still not in a good spot. Daily Notice to Mariners for quite some time. They had no business going in there after dark.

[Don C L]

Originally Posted by tdoster

Here is what burns me. This couple received over 15K in donations and the damn boat is still a very bad hazard to navigation just under the water now at green marker #3. Everyone has an opinion on this pass, but I live here, it is a tricky pass, but not terrible if you know what you are doing and watch the tides. About 30 sailboats go through the pass on a good weekend without issue. Welcome to Florida, shoals constantly move and the best advise I can give anyone is use the Navionics map and follow the depths, do not use any other chart and don't follow the marked channel. We upload our soundings after each trip as do many others. Also, after 30 years of sailing, I am smart enough not to go in a pass like John's Pass or most any other in Florida without local knowledge and that I learned in the first two weeks. But now I have through two bridges to get out since I am not willing to risk hitting their boat.

This is speculation, but from what I hear, they sunk because they have a swing keel that was down at the time and that was the only object they hit. I could be wrong, but will make it a point to be there when they drop it at a yard off a barge.

Tanner Broadwell clean up your mess. There are plenty of salvage crews in the area. If anyone hits your boat and sinks, You will find the cruising community is not going to be friendly knowing you left it and had the funds to clean it up.

As of 2/19/2018 your boat is just under the water at Marker #3 waiting to sink another boat.

I thought the plan was to clean up their mess. If they don't, my opinion of their misadventures changes dramatically.

[hellosailor]

"Who hasn't taken the ground a time or two?"
Knock wood, not YET. I've been spoiled by generally excessive depths around LI and NYC and aside from looking at the depth sounder and charts really carefully when someone asked me to take the boat rockhopping...I just figure anyplace that is shallow enough so the mast could get stuck on the bottom while rolling the boat, is too shallow to really enjoy. (Hey, I'm a hard customer.)

That and the memory of one day casually looking at the charts and landmarks and using a really excessively loud voice to say HARD ABOUT! NOW NOW NOW! because I realized we were about to step into the Stepping Stones rocks, and I had no idea what the tide state was. Didn't really want to find out just then, either.

So, not yet. Not quite. Although I've also seen some channels marked right longside beaches (outside Great Kills Harbor, south side of Staten Island) and one off a bar outside Huntington Harbor, that really made me wonder about the wisdom of being there.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Don C L

I thought the plan was to clean up their mess. If they don't, my opinion of their misadventures changes dramatically.

my judgement about them has it appears to have been at least for now confirmed.

[surf_sail]

Originally Posted by tdoster

As of 2/19/2018 your boat is just under the water at Marker #3 waiting to sink another boat.

Thank you for the local update. Please keep us posted.

[atmartin]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"Who hasn't taken the ground a time or two?"
Knock wood, not YET. I've been spoiled by generally excessive depths around LI and NYC and aside from looking at the depth sounder and charts really carefully when someone asked me to take the boat rockhopping...I just figure anyplace that is shallow enough so the mast could get stuck on the bottom while rolling the boat, is too shallow to really enjoy. (Hey, I'm a hard customer.)

No skin off my back, but you're missing out on some great anchorages, at least on the East End of LI.

Hallocks Bay (out by Orient)

Northwest Creek, which is straight-up awesome: Quiet and serene, yet a quick dinghy ride to the madness of Sag Harbor.

Northwest creek the channel doesn't match the charts exactly (as I found out last summer, lol). NOAA charts of Hallocks are next to useless. But I think the Garmin stuff is a little better.

Both Three Mile Harbor and Montauk Lake have plenty of depth in most areas, but you can get further away from the crowd if you feel out the bottom

Like good fishing holes, most local boaters keep this info to themselves.

[tdoster]

Originally Posted by surf_sail

In a similar vain, how much safer are you really at daytime? If it's overcast or murky waters you won't see the depth. Yeah you'll do better at deciphering buoys. But it certainly doesn't guarantee you from running aground. Maybe there are more boats to follow in? But following in a low draft motorboat is maybe even more likely to get you into trouble...

Now if it's a far-flung port without proper charting, I can totally see there is a lot of value in waiting until the visibility/sun is in a good position to see the depth. But for a relatively well charter port in Florida, is it really wrong to come in at night?

I remember once almost messing up coming into a port caseville, mi at night, but really it was due to my stupidity of not studying the chart well enough. With better preparation it should have been fine.

Happy to hear other thoughts on what makes daytime significantly safer (especially if it's overcast/murky)...

From someone who lives two blocks from the inlet, I can tell you that I would not do that inlet without a prior GPS track high tide and calm seas and instead go up to Pass-a-Grill and under two lift bridges. Unless your plotter takes you exactly to the #2 and getting a good line from there on the temporary #3, bail out. (you are going to dog leg around the #3, then slowly make your way back to the channel at the #4. If for nothing else other than situational awareness as you have to make a few uncharted sharp turns in that pass that regular chart plotters and lit markers are of little help. You can't line up on the lights. Once you hit the shoal, the instinct is to drive back into the channel, wrong in this case - and that is where people get in trouble. During the day, you can see the temporary green and it is so far out of the channel, hopefully it will give you enough pause to watch locals steer south of it. After dark and few boats coming in and out, it would clearly not make sense.

Right now, you have the Cupcakes sunken boat floating below the surface around the #3, so that makes it even less of a prospect for after dark. If the local professional fishing fleet takes pause at night on that inlet, that should tell you something.

[surf_sail]

Originally Posted by tdoster

From someone who lives two blocks from the inlet, I can tell you that I would not do that inlet without a prior GPS track high tide and calm seas and instead go up to Pass-a-Grill and under two lift bridges. Unless your plotter takes you exactly to the #2 and getting a good line from there on the temporary #3, bail out. (you are going to dog leg around the #3, then slowly make your way back to the channel at the #4. If for nothing else other than situational awareness as you have to make a few uncharted sharp turns in that pass that regular chart plotters and lit markers are of little help. You can't line up on the lights. Once you hit the shoal, the instinct is to drive back into the channel, wrong in this case - and that is where people get in trouble. During the day, you can see the temporary green and it is so far out of the channel, hopefully it will give you enough pause to watch locals steer south of it. After dark and few boats coming in and out, it would clearly not make sense.



Right now, you have the Cupcakes sunken boat floating below the surface around the #3, so that makes it even less of a prospect for after dark. If the local professional fishing fleet takes pause at night on that inlet, that should tell you something.

All good points, but it seems like even in day for a transient coming in for the first time this inlet is quite risky. So who in practice would you hail to get the much needed local info?

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by atmartin;2580234.

If I limited my anchorages/inlets to waters 7' (4'+3') or deeper, I would miss out on large tracts of cruising territory..

I go into and anchor in deeper holes in these areas, but only if I have taken the tender in and thoroughly sounded and plotted a track first

[CaptsWife]

Originally Posted by t3c9

https://www.gofundme.com/new-sailing-life
Yay! Lets do it again!

They've changed their description on their gofundme page. The first time I read it, they alluded to the fact that they needed the money to pay the USCG bill. Now it says this:

"The first thing we is a new boat and continue our adventure. We arent giving up on our dream
God Bless & Thank you to every single person who donated, you don't know what it means to us!"

[atmartin]

Originally Posted by CaptsWife

They've changed their description on their gofundme page. The first time I read it, they alluded to the fact that they needed the money to pay the USCG bill. Now it says this:

"The first thing we is a new boat and continue our adventure. We arent giving up on our dream
God Bless & Thank you to every single person who donated, you don't know what it means to us!"

That's pretty underhanded.

Then again, I've got a boat for sale...

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by CaptsWife

They've changed their description on their gofundme page. The first time I read it, they alluded to the fact that they needed the money to pay the USCG bill. Now it says this:

"The first thing we is a new boat and continue our adventure. We arent giving up on our dream
God Bless & Thank you to every single person who donated, you don't know what it means to us!"

Fraudsters and scammers eh?

[surf_sail]

Originally Posted by CaptsWife

They've changed their description on their gofundme page. The first time I read it, they alluded to the fact that they needed the money to pay the USCG bill. Now it says this:



"The first thing we is a new boat and continue our adventure. We arent giving up on our dream

God Bless & Thank you to every single person who donated, you don't know what it means to us!"

No they didn't "allude" to paying for the boat salvage. When I first read it it specifically said the GoFundMe is solely to clean up the boat.

Fortunately waybackmachine kept a record.





https://web.archive.org/web/20180211...w-sailing-life


I'd suggest that anyone that made a donation should try to see if they can reverse it.

P.s. It tells me a lot about them that they didn't even proofread the new gofundme account (I.e. That they forgot the "need".)

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by surf_sail

All good points, but it seems like even in day for a transient coming in for the first time this inlet is quite risky. So who in practice would you hail to get the much needed local info?

Answered in post #539. Also way back in post #41