Where's Waldo?

[Vic K]

Sorry to hear about the incident. Happy to hear that you two are OK. Never liked the St Johns or the tides ripping through Jacksonville. You're fortunate that it wasn't worst...much worst. Good job.

Vic

[Jay Knoll]

Don,

Glad you're safe and sound. I'm going to have to take a close look at my charts, as you know I'm planning on following that same route in awhile.

Jay

[Jay Knoll]

Don

Just looked at the chart, did you get swept into the jetty by the current?

[smacksman]

Easy to get swept off course.

waldo1.jpg

[kerrye]

That was quick thinking. Well done. Glad you are ok.

[Sprig1]

That news hit me like sledgehammer. So sorry to hear the bad news glad you are ok.

[kerrye]

Waterway guide says there is construction going on in that area. Was that a factor in your grounding?

[sail149]

So glad your safe. I'm sure your very busy with getting sorted out.
It looks crazy steep to from Smackmans chart.
Amazed and pleased your Carolyn did not freak out and is talking about future trips.
Have a tall one!

[sail149]

I finally found a chart , what a crappy entrance to the ICW. I've been near there once and a lot of current.
Nav marks in short supply too.

[Beta Don]

No, we weren't swept into the jetty. It was a conscious last second decision on my part and I didn't realize the jetty was even there

Garmin's VUS009R chart chip consistently shows the 'ditch' as a white path with the shallower water on either side of it as a solid blue with the depths indicated. That is right up to the last bridge you go under shortly before the junction with the St John's river. All of a sudden the white path you've been following for 300 miles is all solid blue, which gave us a bit of concern

I usually travel with the GPS set on either 300 or 500' which shows the best detail. When the all blue confusion began I zoomed it out to 1 or 1.5 nm or so to see the big picture. There was dredging equipment in front of me about 500 yards short of the mark, very near the center of the indicated channel but there was still plenty of room for me to maneuver so that wasn't a problem either, though it did add a bit to the confusion factor

Another bit of self induced confusion. With the chart chip in a Garmin you have access to the 'Guide To' feature, which I use a lot. You choose your destination waypoint and click 'Guide To' and supposedly the box will safely take you there based on the water and air drafts you have set for your particular boat - Supposedly it won't take you into water shallower than your vessel needs nor under any fixed bridges your air draft can't handle. It draws a magenta line down the ditch which shows some places where you can safely shortcut out of the ditch to save time and distance. You *could* even let your GPS drive your autopilot to follow that line if you like living dangerously

It's dangerous because the 'Guidea To' feature isn't nearly that accurate. It *will* quite often run you aground if you let it. Whenever it says it's safe to leave the ditch by even a small amount you'd best be looking closely at both your depth sounder and your charts indicated depth info. At least 2 or 3 times every day it would try to run me aground so I just stay in the ditch if there is even the smallest doubt.

In this case, the magenta line was leading me directly across the jetty, but if I had been zoomed in to 300 or 500' where the jetty is clearly marked, I would have known it was trying to lead me aground yet again

My big error with the confusion caused by the all blue chart, the dredging equipment, the fact that I was coming up to a major junction and my untrustworthy magenta line was that I didn't slow down to gain some extra time to sort it all out. We were trying to make a 60 nm day running against strong currents caused by the big tides because the weather forecasted for the following day wasn't good

Approaching the Green #1 sitting on the small island I was momentarily confused whether that marker was for me in the AICW or those in the St John heading out to sea, so in a moment of confusion I chose to trust the magenta line when I shouldn't have - My second big mistake. There are usually at least 2 or 3 poor choices immediately preceeding any serious incident

Afterwards, I realized of course that the Green #1 is for both the St John *and* the AICW. Greens are always passed to starboard going north on the AICW and with the red right returning rule, they would always be passed to port coming up the river or starboard going out to sea

Given a bit of extra time to sort it out by slowing speed and zooming the GPS back in for a close up look, I would have seen the clearly marked jetty on the chart

When we hit it Carolyn said 'What was that?!!' and I said 'I have no idea, but we might be taking on water!'

The boat came to a virtual stop and spun nearly 180 degrees by the time I reduced power and when she reported that we were indeed taking on water, I quickly spun her around another 180 and we went across the jetty a second time but without hitting anything that time. When you examine the jetty at low tide, there is very little of it above the water, so at a 5' high tide a 3' draft boat would safely clear it in most places. We hit it at about mid tide and unluckily enough, probably hit the tallest part of it.

Poor seamanship on my part in several regards no doubt, with a touch of bad luck mixed in

Don

[kerrye]

Don't kick yourself too hard. The round the world racers managed to find a reef in the middle of the Indian Ocean a few years ago.

[smacksman]

Many thanks for the explanation Don. Such honesty adds to all of our 'knowledge base'.

Those plotters can be very confusing. I remember running onto the mud in the ICW in Georgia following the magenta line till I zoomed in and found that for some reason the whole of Georgia had moved about 100 yards to port. I noted in my log to complain to the Governor.

Another time during a tricky entrance in Holland, the Garmin suddenly went into 'night' mode and the reverse in colours completely threw me for a few seconds.

[Jay Knoll]

Thanks for the information Don, lots of lessons there. Where is the boat now? Is it totaled or will you be able to repair the damage and make her seaworthy again?

Jay

[2manyboats]

Don;

Sorry to hear of your mishap, and happy your both ok.

Thanks for the honest explanation, a lot of boaters would have found natural forces as the cause. I'm also glad to learn about the Garmin problem. The 25 I bought has a Garmin which I have not used yet. My Lowrance did not have the safe water/safe air feature. I'm not so excited about the Garmin now.

Wayne

[Beta Don]

Where is the boat now? Is it totaled or will you be able to repair the damage and make her seaworthy again?

She's on her trailer, headed home to Biloxi in the morning

Definitely not totaled. I'm pretty sure the engine would start right now if I tried it. No water in the crankcase and I really doubt with all the plumbing associated with the turbo and intercooler that any seawater made it as far as the cylinders either. ~250 hours on the engine is all. The battery charger and inverter are probably shot but most of the other electronics are OK. The little diesel genset (with about 5 total hours of run time) is probably not going to run again. We seldom used the genset - A better choice would have been another 30 gallons of freshwater in it's place and a little Honda 2000i for use if you need to run the A/C

Am *I* going to repair it? Kinda doubt it. We're going to be looking at boats which are a little larger. Part of doing the loop is the after hours social scene and we're tired of being the ones in the boat too small to invite anyone over for dinner and we'd also like to be able to have company along with us for parts of the trip and an A27 is just too small for more than a couple to live on

We had fitted a water heater and a shower which we never used in 10 weeks and 1500 miles. Why? When you're in a marina, you have hot showers with unlimited water available and when you're on the hook, you can't 'afford' a hot shower when all you have is 30 gallons of water. Rationing freshwater was a daily habit for us and we're not fond of living like that

Our next boat will have at least a 100 gallon freshwater capacity and room for another couple to comfortably spend a few days cruising with us. We're going to look at a Mainship 34 next week and at probably a few dozen other makes/models before we settle on something that will work well for us

Don