You east coasters wanna see what it's like up in the PNW?

[Mariner]

This break-bulk carrier is crossing Columbia River bar heading out into the Pacific Ocean. This is why you don't see a lot of Sport Fishers and Center Console boats like you do down in California or on the East Coast. Offshore fishing is a very dangerous game up here.

[Mariner]

Oh yeah, and that water is about 40 degrees in the winter, giving you about ten minutes to get rescued before you die. But don't worry, in the summer it warms up to 45 and you have as much as fifteen minutes. That is if you are wearing a life jacket and don't drown when you lose control of your arms and legs in the first five minutes.

[Mariner]

Current conditions offshore of the bar:

Wave Height (WVHT): 10.2 ft
Dominant Wave Period (DPD): 13 sec
Average Period (APD): 7.8 sec
Mean Wave Direction (MWD): W ( 279 deg true )
Atmospheric Pressure (PRES): 29.95 in
Pressure Tendency (PTDY): +0.03 in ( Rising )
Air Temperature (ATMP): 49.5 °F
Water Temperature (WTMP): 44.4 °F

[jcollins]

After seeing that, I'll never complain about the Chesapeake again!

[DougSea]

I'm getting cold just looking at that! Brrrrr!

(I especially enjoyed Mariner's assurance that I'd get an extra 5 minutes of rescue time in the summer! Let's get going!!)

[DBM]

looks like fun!!!

I know it's not a good place to play, when the coast guard rescue vessel of choice is a "self-righting" life boat. I've never even contemplated capsizing in my boat. imagine the things that flash before your eyes when you fell your boat FLIPPING OVER!!!!

Stay safe up there.

Dbm

[Mariner]

Imagine standing at the helm of this boat looking at that surf and thinking, "I've got to drive this boat through those waves"



To be fair, this is the Columbia River Bar, which is the most dangerous spot around up here. But to everyone who thinks northwest boating is just the aluminum sleds on the upland rivers....well... you're wrong.

[DBM]

i'm pretty sure i would need a change of underwear if I came upon an inlet that had that kind of welcome.

I am correct in my assumption that the way recreational craft deal with these types of situations is to time your entrance for a slack tide?

David

[Mariner]

Those Coasties do some amazing stuff

[Mariner]

Slack high tide is the best time. That reduces the size of the breakers. You want to head out on the low tide and return on the high. Or at least that's what they tell me. I've never been foolish ehough to try to cross one of the bars.

Once when I was a kid, I got to observe some rather peculiar behavior. For whatever reason, a group of fishermen returning from their day on the water chose to do so by riding the surf up onto the beach. We're talking about 5+ foot swells offshore, which of course means 10' breakers. And up here, the surf zone isn't a few hundred feet like some places. The waves break, reform, and break again repeatedly over a 1/4 to 1/2 mile wide surf zone. Standing on the beach, you can't see blue water...only white foam. Our ocean beaches are extremely flat (due to a geologic feature called a "double subduction zone" where the Pacific Plate is being pushed under the Juan de Fuca Plate, which is being pushed under the North American Plate). They are so flat, in fact, that when standing on them, they appear to be as flat as pool table. They are, however, sloped ever so slightly towards the water. With each wave, the water surges in and out a distance of about 100'. And with 10' tides on the coast, this flat section of beach extends very far out. The difference between high tide and low tide is literally a 1/4 mile of exposed beach. Also, our sand is not soft like elsewhere. It is hard enough to drive a car on (which is perfectly legal), even when dry, and without 4wd.

On to a beach like that, is where these guys would ride their boats, at full throttle on the face of a breaking wave. They would ride the wave all the way in until it deposited them on the beach like a dead fish, and then receeded back. They would release the tilt locks on their outboards before hand and as soon as they felt the bottom, they'd throw the gear into neutral and let nature do her work. The boat would come skidding onto the beach eventually coming to a stop. Then the pickup and trailer would come swooping into position, hook up and start cranking the boat up onto the trailer, hopefully before the next wave came in and enveloped them both. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. We're talking about 20'+ boats.

[Denis]

Can you explain to me why there are so many aluminum boats out your way and almost none here on the east coast?
Those are some great pictures by the way, I wouldn't want to tackle anything like that.

[AlMar]

"Hey new guy, we need somebody forward to change the navlite bulb"

[Mariner]

Can you explain to me why there are so many aluminum boats out your way and almost none here on the east coast?
Those are some great pictures by the way, I wouldn't want to tackle anything like that.

You know, it's a funny thing. I personally have never taken aluminum boats seriously. I grew up boating on Puget Sound, which is saltwater, and although it isn't offshore, it can get pretty rough. A flexible, deep-V with a smooth entry is necessary. But aside from Puget Sound and the inside of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, there isn't much protected salt water. The only other option is what you see in those pictures, and fresh water. The only fresh water of any substantial size is the Columbia River. But the Northwest Interior is positively filled with smaller, wild rivers. These rivers are generally not managed or controlled like the Columbia. They are shallow, rocky, and change from year to year. They only way to safely navigate them is with a metal boat that can take rock stricks, driven by an impeller, which draws no water. The result is a lot of flat-bottomed aluminum boats with jet drives.

Growing up on Puget Sound, I didn't see these very often. But now that I get around a little more, I see them everywhere. This is also partially becuase the inland population has skyrocketed in the last decade, so there are more boats over there.

What does sometimes perplex me is that there are quite a few saltwater boats built from aluminum as well. Not nearly as many as are built from fiberglass, but more than you see elsewhere. There are two possible explanations I can come up with. First, people's biggest objection to aluminum boats is that they are extremely hot to the touch in the sun, and accumulate ice, or can freeze to your skin upon contact in very cold weather. Here in the northwest, we have a pretty mild climate (particularly west of the Cascades, where the bulk of the population lives). The summers rarely get above 80 and the winters rarely drop below 30. Daytime highs in January are sometimes well into the 50's. So, the problem of burning your self on the gunnel of the boat is only an issue a few days out of the year. Another thing is that for many years, electricity was extremely cheap here (until Enron). This meant that the bulk of the nation's aluminum was produced right here. Thus, it made it a cheap and plentiful material for building boats. It's not anymore, but for a long time it was.

You still see a fair number of builders that use aluminum for saltwater boats up in Canada, but not very many down here in Washington. Not sure why that is.

[Mariner]

By the way, we only refer to it as the "pacific" northwest when talking to east coasters and flat landers. To us, this is just the "northwest". Ohio, Minnisota, and Illinois are the "midwest" as far as we're concerned.

[William]

After seeing that, I'll never complain about the Chesapeake again!

Hey, she can be bad too. Took my 86 A-34 across Smith Point in 7-footers that were crossing the bow in tight frequency. It was 2-3 hours of terror. The boat was eith taking green water across the windows or rearing up high enough to bring the engine intake into the air. That howl is eerie.

And it was our first day on the boat. Of course, she handled real well. Kind of like thos MLBs pictured in this thread.