For the mathematically minded amongst us.....

[AndrewB]

Water barrels?

Is this the notorious Port Mayaca railroad bridge? It's official air-height is 49', but it depends on lake levels. The lock-keeper there will organise water barrels to heel yachts in order to get them under, but I believe the highest mast that has ever been achieved is 54'.

Depending on how you are set up, its worth considering lowering the mast rather than taking the long route. A daring alternative with a deck-stepped mast would be to loosen the forestay and allow the mast to swing back about 40 degrees, holding it there with halliards.

A similar thread is running currently on the US CWBB forum where some contributors seem to have experience of this problem.

 

[Salty John]

If you are going to be hopping down the coast, you can stop at Sarasota, Boca Grande (good, deep inlet), Naples (Gordons Pass) and finally Marco Island. These are basically day sails of 25 to 50 miles. From Marco Island go out of Capri Pass and make a straight shot as described above, or you could stop at Little Shark River in the Everglades. With your draft I think I'd miss the delights of the Everglades (mosquito's the size of sparrows) and go straight from Marco to Moser, about 100 miles.

 

[Lizzie_B]

Thanks for the info. Very Helpful. How about from Moser Channel to Miami? Can I use the Hawke Channel? How long roughly?

 

[Lizzie_B]

Re: Water barrels?

Thanks for that. I will give the man that does the tipping a call.

 

[Salty John]

It is about 100 miles. If you've had enough of thin water by then you can go offshore by going outside the barrier reef at Vaca Key (Marathon) straight to Government Cut, Miami. You will have the Gulf Stream with you. Or you can go up Hawkes Channel, which is quite deep and runs between the chain of Keys and the barrier reef. You can stop en-route at places such as Indian Key and Rodrigues Key and maybe stop to snorkel at the John Pennekamp coral Reef State Park.

 

[Dipper]

The calculation will be slightly more complicated than working the height out using simple trigonometry. As your boat is heeled, it is unlikely that that apparent contact point between the imaginary base of the mast and the water will be the pivot point. If this imaginary point ends up higher than the water level when you are heeled (most likely) then the mast top will rise slightly above the calculated height and vice versa if the pivot point ends up below water level.

I haven’t explained it very well so I hope someone can put it into correct mathematical/engineering terms! /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[Lizzie_B]

and then of course there is the changes in draught due to all those water barrels and changing the water plane. The way they do it at Indian River, so I've found out, is to tow you alongside a boat with a pump and pump water into containers on the side deck until a hieght gauge sort of thingy that the put at your masthead tells them your heeled enough to clear. They don't bother working out the angles.