[C38] Deep keel - 6'9"

[Michael Norcross]

Hi guys, We too have a deep draft and mainly sail the Annapolis area.
Luckily most shoals are mud,
since we had a bad habit of trusting the GPS completely and have stuck it
several times. One shoal off the South River has shifted dramatically,
allowing us to rename it according to whoever is at the helm when we go
aground. The last time, my friend Colin was driving, we were double reefed
on a beam reach with 30 K true wind at full hull speed, I say " Are we ok on
depth." Yes!" in return..and then the chutes deployed for rentry. I of
course ranted and raved as we tried motoring, but finally we hoisted
more sail to heel the boat, and off we went. I have a cool video just before
we parted the mud if anyone is interested. In general, the deep keel is
always in the back of our mind in the shallower parts of the bay, but its
great with 20K head winds, with a full moon overhead, as we comfortably beat
our way home. Usually at this time, we are the only boat on the bay, well,
except for Rob Cornelson in his Cat38.

Mike Norcross
Escape #318
Annapolis
 Jun 8, 2011 at 8:14 AM, <Steve.Ribble at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Marci.
>
> In Maine we've got about 30 sq ft of soft bottom and the rest is hard,
> irregular and [to a great extent] unmarked by aids...so a chart is usually
> close at hand...and of course it's further complicated with 16'+/- tide
> swings. That said, there's only so many places to sail for day and weekend
> trips and you quickly learn where to go and where not to go (the other
> sailing I do is offshore racing throughout the Gulf of Maine, so plenty of
> water there, but also many different ports). For my two cents about the
> keel, I wouldn't go any other way than the deep draft. I prefer the
> performance and maneuverability of the fin over the shoal version (haven't
> sailed a C-38 shoal, but have done others).
>
> You can also set depth alarms (at whatever depth you want) on your sounder
> and/or GPS as a back-up warning system so you don't need to use the chart
> quite so much.
>
> Steve
>
> Steve Ribble
> Tittravate #64
> Boothbay Hbr, ME
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>
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