dhays
Guru
- Joined
- May 26, 2015
- Messages
- 9,532
- Location
- Gig Harbor, WA
- Vessel Name
- Kinship
- Vessel Make
- 2010 North Pacific 43
I have been boating on Puget Sound my entire life. Most of it in the Tacoma area. I have gone through the Tacoma Narrows hundreds of times over the years. I have never seen seas in the Sound like we hit today.
We were going to head South for the weekend from Gig Harbor. I was thinking about getting fuel at Narrows Marina in Day Island on the way so we started crossing the Narrows going SE crossing from the West side of the channel over the the East side with the intention of going under the Narrows Bridge near the East pylon.
It has been pretty windy today. Forecast was for 15 with gusts to 25 out of the South. Turns out it was more like a solid 20+ with higher gusts. Thus was blowing counter to a flood tide with current in the Narrows of better than 3 knots. This combination created the largest seas that I have ever experienced. The only thing that has come close was years ago when I timed going South out of Cattle Pass wrong and hit those waves, but those are in a very small spot. Today these seas started a nm North of the bridge and continued all the way South past Fox Island.
I admit that I was a bit caught off guard. We were in the midst of it before I realized how bad it was going to be so I cut East trying to get into calmer water along the shore. I found it in about 45' of water a few boat lengths from shore. This was fine until we were right under the bridge where the seas ran all the way to the rocks on shore. South of the bridge it was a little better again near shore but now we were hugging the East side of the Narrows and would need to cross over to the West side North of Fox Island. I ended up staying on the East side and then was able to make my way West since the current isn't quite as strong on the East side. Eventually we had to cross the channel but it wasn't as bad as it had been further North. We made it far enough across the channel and was able to time the waves to spin the boat from SW to NE and start taking the waves on the stern quarter instead of the bow. At that point we quickly got into relatively calm water.
The waves were very high and short. It is very hard for me to judge, but the biggest were likely around 6' judging from where I was looking at the tops of them when I was in the trough. The were short enough that the bow head down and get buried in the face of the n DT wave. The Narrows has lots of eddies and rips, this meant that the waves very disjointed in places with some very impressive peaks where two wave forms would meet constructively and some odd flat spot about a boat length large where the wave forms met destructively. These same rips also collected a lot of logs that were very tough to spot. Fortunately, we were able to miss them all.
So I learned some things; I learned what things in the boat stay in place and which items become airborne when the bottom drops out. I learned that I need to secure my dinghy on the boat deck better as I discovered it had moved around a lot. I also need to see what I can do to secure the anchor a bit better since it moved a around more than I like when bow gets buried. I discovered that my forward cabin hatch and portholes are water tight. I also now yearn for a jog control on my autopilot as it takes too long to spin the wheel when a log suddenly appears right in front you.
I am pleased with how the boat handled my error of judgment. As I said though, I have never experienced these types of seas here in the South Sound.
We were going to head South for the weekend from Gig Harbor. I was thinking about getting fuel at Narrows Marina in Day Island on the way so we started crossing the Narrows going SE crossing from the West side of the channel over the the East side with the intention of going under the Narrows Bridge near the East pylon.
It has been pretty windy today. Forecast was for 15 with gusts to 25 out of the South. Turns out it was more like a solid 20+ with higher gusts. Thus was blowing counter to a flood tide with current in the Narrows of better than 3 knots. This combination created the largest seas that I have ever experienced. The only thing that has come close was years ago when I timed going South out of Cattle Pass wrong and hit those waves, but those are in a very small spot. Today these seas started a nm North of the bridge and continued all the way South past Fox Island.
I admit that I was a bit caught off guard. We were in the midst of it before I realized how bad it was going to be so I cut East trying to get into calmer water along the shore. I found it in about 45' of water a few boat lengths from shore. This was fine until we were right under the bridge where the seas ran all the way to the rocks on shore. South of the bridge it was a little better again near shore but now we were hugging the East side of the Narrows and would need to cross over to the West side North of Fox Island. I ended up staying on the East side and then was able to make my way West since the current isn't quite as strong on the East side. Eventually we had to cross the channel but it wasn't as bad as it had been further North. We made it far enough across the channel and was able to time the waves to spin the boat from SW to NE and start taking the waves on the stern quarter instead of the bow. At that point we quickly got into relatively calm water.
The waves were very high and short. It is very hard for me to judge, but the biggest were likely around 6' judging from where I was looking at the tops of them when I was in the trough. The were short enough that the bow head down and get buried in the face of the n DT wave. The Narrows has lots of eddies and rips, this meant that the waves very disjointed in places with some very impressive peaks where two wave forms would meet constructively and some odd flat spot about a boat length large where the wave forms met destructively. These same rips also collected a lot of logs that were very tough to spot. Fortunately, we were able to miss them all.
So I learned some things; I learned what things in the boat stay in place and which items become airborne when the bottom drops out. I learned that I need to secure my dinghy on the boat deck better as I discovered it had moved around a lot. I also need to see what I can do to secure the anchor a bit better since it moved a around more than I like when bow gets buried. I discovered that my forward cabin hatch and portholes are water tight. I also now yearn for a jog control on my autopilot as it takes too long to spin the wheel when a log suddenly appears right in front you.
I am pleased with how the boat handled my error of judgment. As I said though, I have never experienced these types of seas here in the South Sound.