Thoughts on ICW Boats

Anyone contemplating this trip on their own boat, might find the following interesting. Everyone else should just skip to the next post.

Several years ago, Soundings magazine ran an article about Captain Freddy, a young man from Rhode Island who did this trip in a 20 foot sailboat, using a blue tarp, strung between mast & boom, for propulsion and a Texaco road map for navigation. He made it to Florida and back, occasionally stopping to make a little money and ask directions. I think about Freddy when my two satellite navigation units don’t agree with each other or the readings on my electronic deep sounder. This trip can be done with a lot less, but Freddy was a lot younger, and we are more cautious and comfort conscious.

SkipStone is 40 feet long. In the rough seas of Block Island Sound, Long Island Sound and Chesapeake Bay, we were glad to have a boat this large. However, maneuvering between expensive yachts in crowded marinas was sometimes challenging. By using prop walk & bow thruster and clear communications about what & where we were about to ram, we learned to manage without damage. Most of time, our size wasn’t a problem. Although, some smaller marinas limit slip space to 40 feet and we heard of larger boats being denied space because they were too big.

One important lesson (that we had to learn twice) was to make sure we can get out of a slip before going in. Twice, at the end of long travel days, we went bow first, into U shaped slips, that seemed plenty wide to turn around in. We were just happy to secure the boat for the night, only to discover the next morning that other boats had arrived, tied up in back of us or at adjoining docks, and blocked our exit route. Starting the day by making a 7 point turn, in reverse, against the wind, with the current, and having our bow mounted anchor, clear the shrouds of a docked sailboat by inches, tends to open the eyes and increase the heart rate. Better to think out the exit before securing for the night.

Our beam is 13 feet, which is on the narrow side. We were thankful for our slimness when we backed between two pilings at Reedville, that were 14 feet apart. We draw 4 feet 4 inches. When we were pushed out of a channel by a passhole, the depth sounder registered 5’4”, close but we made it. When Kathy was driving she saw a water depth of 3’ 2”. I don’t know exactly how we made it and was glad I was napping.

Our air draft is 14’ 4” with the antennas down. Twice, we scooted under bridges showing 18’ on their height boards, while sailboats and flybridge powerboats had to wait for an opening. The last bridge we went under had a high water height of 14’, we went through at low tide and held our breath.

Most sailboats we saw were about our size, while the powerboats were a little bigger (45’ to 55’). We were passed by a few large (70’ to 80’) motor yachts, but this was rare. We saw many mega yachts (100’+) tied up at the marinas and assume that these big boys tend to travel outside the ICW, then duck inside, through the inlets, to tie up for the night. Bigger and faster boats can get down the coast a lot faster this way, but they miss the scenery of the inside route and face the challenges of running through the (sometimes turbulent) inlets.

An important part of preparing for this trip is to have your boat name easily read from astern. Boats equipped with AIS can read another similarly equipped boats name, off the chart plotter. Non AIS boats can only be identified visually and radio communications are big part of navigating the traffic. Trying to connect with other boats, by calling out to “the white sailboat with the blue sail cover behind the blue sailboat with the white sail cover” can be confusing.

We chose a boat with a single engine and bow thruster for economy and maneuverability. We were also concerned about the possibility of tree branches getting stuck in the exposed props of twin engine boats. So far, we have seen very little floating debris and watching the twin engined boats throttle jockey into slips has been impressive. Entering Beaufort, we were on the radio with a twin engine trawler who had lost their steering and the captain requested plenty of room because he was steering with his engines. Hmm…good trick if you have the equipment.

The economy of getting 3 miles to the gallon versus 2 is kind of moot point when we could both fly home for the equivalent of 50 gallons of diesel. Traveling by trawler is less expensive than traveling in a high powered sport fisherman, but in the overall scheme of things, not by much.

Speed was also part of our boat selection. North of the ICW we powered along at about 9.5 knots. Twice we powered up to 12, to out run weather, and once (Jersey Shore) we maintained 12 knots to shorten a long travel day. After we had entered the ICW, (south of Virginia) our top speed was 8, frequently slowing to 5 for no wake zones and 3 for slow passes.

Overall, SkipStone’s size & speed were a good fit, for the route we chose. A bigger and faster boat would have made some long days shorter or permitted quicker transit times by going outside. However, even the big sport-fisherman were slowing down to 10ish knots in the rough seas and the stately motor yachts only traveled a little faster than us. Our pace also provided an unexpected perspective. We were able to notice, adjust and decompress as we travelled deeper into the southern states. In short, moving at 11 miles an hour gave us time to observe, absorb and process.