Ok, NOW I'm asking about doing the ICW motorless

[chrisncate]

...

[john1066]

There are about 130 bridges on the ICW, some 85 of which are opening bridges. There is also a lock at Great Bridge.

It is impossible to sail the ICW, but I realize this will not deter you. You could possibly row or skull. Or you could hip tow with dinghy and outboard. But with sail as you're only means of propulsion I fear your effort would be doomed to failure.

Currents can be fast in some locations; there are areas where you can't deviate from the channel due to depth. There are sections that run between ranges and they switch back and forth in direction - you'll need some very accomodating wind shifts to help on those sections!

There will be Colregs issues that you'll need to check.

You'll be travelling at night because you wont be able to keep up the required speed to get you from one suitable anchorage to another in daylight hours. Take a good spotlight.

As I said - impossible. But don't let that deter you!

[tommays]

As i person who grew up spending summers at grandmas house in lower slower deleware in the Rehoboth Beach area which is a small sailboat /windsurfing meca we surely never had a motor

In later life when i had the aparment on the Patchogue River we spent a good amount of time as in everyday after work doing motor free dingy sailing in and out of the river without issue

When my wife wanted a bit more and we went to are first 18' keel boat and later are first J24 doing the same thing once in while you could do motor free but in general people cut us a LOT less slack as the boat size increased

[rockDAWG]

Originally Posted by chrisncate

Ok, NOW I'm asking about doing the ICW motorless

Help a nut out, will ya?

Dear Nutz:

I am sure you can, but not with your current boat. If I have time, I think I can do it with a Capri 14.2 or a laser.

[casey1999]

Once you do the ICW motorless, I would try to do the Northwest Passage Motorless. It has been done in a sailboat- now that is a real challenge.

[NautiG]

Nice Dawg! I'm a catamaran guy, so I think I'd try it in a hobie cat.

Chris, I don't think anyone here with practical experience of the icw has supported your idea of transiting the icw without a motor. It is simply impossible in a boat your size for a myriad of reasons. If you start at mile 0, you will not make it through the Great Bridge Lock at Mile 11, and I suspect you would give up long before you even made it there.

Others have given practical suggestions like sailing to Bermuda and turning right. Or, if you want to visit the sounds in NC or some other specific area on the Eastern Seaboard, you should research that specific area and figure out how you might access it from the ocean. Because if you insist on going engineless, ocean sailing is your best bet. Or maybe you could just tool around the Chesapeake. Although, even in the Chesapeake there will be some nice places you will not be able to reach without a motor.

Good luck,
Scott
Gemini Catamaran Split Decision

[rayncyn51]

Get an inexpensive PC based chart plotting software, download the free charts, and spend some hours planning your route. Tide and current information easily available on the web. There is enough information at Active Captain and Cruisersnet to give you a pretty realistic idea of where to anchor and what you can and cannot do on any given day at any given mile stick.

For your situation, off the top of my head, my concerns would be:

• Making the multiple bridge schedules on the Elizabeth River against the current.
• Locking in and out of the Dismal Swamp. OK, I could do the eastern route, but I’d miss Elizabeth City.
• The ever-changing dogleg shoal entering the Alligator River.
• The Alligator River Bridge. I understand they won’t open until you are parked and waiting, and the current can be pretty swift. There have been a few boats – with engines - dismasted there.
• Pungo Canal, straight, narrow, and full of old posts broken off at water level. Not a good place to meet an oncoming barge.
• Oriental, NC – bumping my 5’3” keel on the mud in a 6’ channel at mid tide. Saved by a quick turn and the Iron Wind.

OK, so that’s 20% of the trip. We’re nowhere near South Carolina with it’s rives that go east one minute and west the next, or Georgia, with it’s 9 foot tides and 5 knot currents.

This is maybe not impossible, but it’s way, way harder than it has to be. And it exposes my boat and my crew to far more danger than is prudent for a good skipper to incur.

My biggest fear, I think (And shoot me for straying from political correctness) would be that, by sailing a commercial waterway where it is not customary to do so, I would inadvertently challenge a local captain to take it upon himself to demonstrate to me the folly of my ways by purposely maneuvering me into a difficult situation. Chances are you'll be calling his cousin to tow you off. Life is hard enough without wearing a “Kick Me” sign on your back.

[CapnBilll]

If you make it post the "how to". We are curious how you will go upstream against a headwind in a narrow channel with no room to tack, and oncoming barges.

[PalmettoSailor]

Originally Posted by rayncyn51

My biggest fear, I think (And shoot me for straying from political correctness) would be that, by sailing a commercial waterway where it is not customary to do so, I would inadvertently challenge a local captain to take it upon himself to demonstrate to me the folly of my ways by purposely maneuvering me into a difficult situation. Chances are you'll be calling his cousin to tow you off. Life is hard enough without wearing a “Kick Me” sign on your back.

I'm not sure anyone would purposefully screw soemone over like that, but they sure could do it unintentinally thinking you'd motor out of the way like 99.9999999% of the boats the guy has ever experienced.

Besides the areas you pointed out, I really can't see how the ICW from the NC line to at least as far as Winyah Bay could be sailed safely. I have family along the SC coast and have spent summers there since I was old enough to remember. Even if you could afford to wait until you got the ideal wind that would let you stay in a narrow straight channel, I don't think you could count on them long enough to get to the next anchorage. The section through Myrtle Beach is like the start, just a narrow ditch. The section below Georgetown is not much wider and it has some twists and turns before you reach Charleston.

The only semi reasonable way I could see to do a coastal trip motorless would be go out side at Norfolk and in at Charleston, and from there I don't really know what would be the next port that you could safely sail into (Savannah?) since I've never been there and haven't thought about such an (mis)-adventure. I mean there's a reason some of the earliest settlements in the country are along the Chesapeake and Charleston and that's because you could sail ship there without putting it in danger. Remember even Joshua Slocum was towed in a few times and we're way past the time that you'd be such a novelty/celebrity that tow boat captains would rush out to offer you a free tow to the local anchorage.

Anyway, I think the fact that in this day and age it would be nearly universally expected that a 30 something foot sailboat would be able to manuver on its own to comply with navigation requirements regardless of wind conditions. That being the case, I do think other boaters would be likely to inadvertently put you in dire straits. Consider being washed aground by a parade of passing trawlers while the sails flap listlessly for example.

[PBzeer]

As I said in your other thread, there are many places where you could sail, it's the getting in and out of them that is the problem. Also, south of Ft Pierce, you're not just dealing with opening bridges, most are scheduled openings.