What’s the minimum depth you would sail in?

[conchaway]

I like to cruise where it's shallow enough for the bottom to scrap the barnacles off the bottom.

[Cliffhanger]

It also depends on the type of boat. I used to have trailer sailor with a swing keel and no depth sounder. Used the keel as a sounder. Run aground? Just wind the keel up a bit more and keep going! I now have a 36ft catamaran with mini-keels. If the bottom is sandy or mud and the tide is rising, then I am happy to get around with only a few inches of water under the keels. Deep keel monohull sailboats are a different story though. And of course this only applies if the weather is benign.

[waterman46]

It's all about the tides and what lurks below.



If the bottom is *very* well known to be nearly level mud or sand, then I will sail right up to about 1' greater than my draft on the first half of a rising tide. Three hours where there are diurnal tides like SD. Closer to high tide or certainly on a falling tide I'd always allow draft plus tidal range.

You have to know the state of the tide and the expected levels for the next high and low to make good decisions.


In any other bottom conditions, I will avoid sailing into areas less than my draft plus average high to low tide range.

[chasfgr]

Originally Posted by Letterkenny

There’s a part of the San Diego bay here they gets shallow but is a very nice place to sail. There’s not a lot of boats (partly due to the depth) and gets good wind as it’s not blocked by Point Loma. I’ve sailed there quite a bit without issue but know of a couple shallow spots. The depth charts put the shallowest point as 9’ (with the exceptions of a couple small 5’ and 7’ areas) at low tide which on the current boat means a bit over 3’ under the keel. One additional comfort is that it’s a muddy bottom so if you do ground the boat, it shouldn’t be too much of a consequence. Depth finder never has had it below 12’ in actual practice but curious know what is the minimum depth that other sailors are willing to travel?

About 1 metre from the transducer - but I don't have a fixed keel and can dry out level on my wing - and frequebtly have when all about me have been dragging, colliding and having a bad night.

[Svsumurun]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

As others have already said, it depends. Depends on the location, the bottom, tides, and also how much is sticking down. I've sailed in shallow areas where I sure wish I'd bought that retractable keel boat .

It does take time to adjust from deep water sailing to shallow water. I recall sailing the length of the Great Lakes. When we left Lake Superior, where water quickly falls off to 100s of feet, it was freaky to sail through Lake Erie where the deepest parts are less than 100 feet, and often less than 15. Sailing over those well heads, I always felt we might be scraping bottom.

This is funny mike - I remember a few years back being in colchester ontario and a couple boaters came over and wanted to talk about the chart/ route they were looking at. They came over with their iPads and were really having a hard time with the depths they were seeing for Lake Erie! Turns out they had come from Lake Huron and were expecting depth again after they came out of the river... nope!! Gave them a few hints ( they were taking their kids to cedar point) about Sandusky as the water leaves the bay with a SW wind and they walked away stunned that anyone would even have a boat here!

Like others have said - it depends , what is the bottom, weather, etc ..

[Kd9truck]

My boat draws 7.5 my depth alarm is set at 9 feet and I have not herd it go off yet. I sail the western Long Island sound mostly and the depths that I sail range from 11ft in verry few spots to about 40ft average. There are some big rocks that lie on the bottom and you see them at low tide the swing is 8 ft.

[C420sailor]

I draw 5’ on the nose.

I get nervous when the sounder shows single digits.

It only takes one uncharted wreck, boulder, abandoned mooring block, whatever to ruin your day.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Svsumurun

This is funny mike - I remember a few years back being in colchester ontario and a couple boaters came over and wanted to talk about the chart/ route they were looking at. They came over with their iPads and were really having a hard time with the depths they were seeing for Lake Erie! Turns out they had come from Lake Huron and were expecting depth again after they came out of the river... nope!! Gave them a few hints ( they were taking their kids to cedar point) about Sandusky as the water leaves the bay with a SW wind and they walked away stunned that anyone would even have a boat here!

Like others have said - it depends , what is the bottom, weather, etc ..

Funny... We went into the Colchester marina after exiting the Detroit river when we came thought back in 2015. I recall talking to the marina before coming in, explained we drew 6'. They assured me, "oh, we have lots of water." Well, man was I sweating as I watched the numbers on our depthsounder get smaller, smaller, smaller. I forget what I finally saw, but it seemed barely enough for us to squeak in.

But like I say, I was more used to Lake Superior water, so it probably was "lots of water" by L. Erie standards. .

[Adelie]

Depends on what the bottom is.

Bahamas sand: 2-3’.
PNW rocks: 7-10’ with the occasional numb down to 4-5’.

[sailingabe41ds]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Funny... We went into the Colchester marina after exiting the Detroit river when we came thought back in 2015. I recall talking to the marina before coming in, explained we drew 6'. They assured me, "oh, we have lots of water." Well, man was I sweating as I watched the numbers on our depthsounder get smaller, smaller, smaller. I forget what I finally saw, but it seemed barely enough for us to squeak in.

But like I say, I was more used to Lake Superior water, so it probably was "lots of water" by L. Erie standards. .

Next time clarify what "lots of water" means....horizontal or vertical plane.

Abe

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by sailingabe41ds

Next time clarify what "lots of water" means....horizontal or vertical plane.

Abe

[garyfdl]

Originally Posted by Letterkenny

what is the minimum depth that other sailors are willing to travel?

About 2" less than the draft of my old Hunter 27. There was on high spot in the harbor I always seemed to find and 2 sandbars just outside the entrance that I couldn't avoid. Was always able to power through, but every year the bottom couple inches of the keel was 'scrubbed clean'.

[Scorpius]

Around here (BC coast) if you see 100'+ cliffs ashore there could be one nearby underwater. The bottom often comes up INSTANTLY from 30 or 50 feet to next to nothing - and you usually can't tell by the colour the water. There are places in Princess Louisa Inlet where you could tie to the shore (if there were anything to tie to) and your sounder would show no bottom at over 600 feet! However, we have great charts (thank you Union Steamships and the Canadian Hydrographic Service) and it pays to pay VERY close attention!

However, I recall sailing between the mainland and the barrier reef north of Belize City. We had a guide book or two but the only available chart was one of the east coast of Central America published by the British Admiralty in 1848. All of Belize occupied 8" of the chart. I think the average depth in that channel is 4.5 feet - and we draw 6. The navaids were sticks stuck in the bottom with styrofoam coffee cups perched on top - but since the local fishermen used the same system to mark their conch traps, they weren't terribly useful.

In the middle of the passage there's a pass called Port'o'Stuck between two mangrove islands. There's an aerial photograph in one of the guide books showing dozens of trenches dug in the sand by boats going through. It really made you sit up and take notice! In our Belizian explorations over several months we went through a number of times - both north and south bound. We always seemed to get through OK but inevitably grounded when exiting - whether at the northern or southern end. I don't know why. Perhaps, in our relief at getting through unscathed, we got complacent and let our guard down.

One day I counted and we touched bottom 17 times - three tmes getting sufficiently stuck that we had to kedge off. My technique was as follows: I had marked our draught (6') with a piece of electrician's tape around the boat hook. I'd get in the dinghy (that's one place I would tow it - which otherwise I HATE to do) and row around Scorpius probing the bottom with the boat hook. If the tape went under we'd float there; if not, we wouldn't. Once I found the "deep" water I'd take the stern anchor out to the end of 300' feet of light line and drop it over. Crew aboard would pull it tight and hopefully set it. If not, I'd dive down and do it manually - then go back to Scorpius and get the main anchor (then a 44# CQR, now a 70# Rocna) and, pulling myself hand-over-hand back to the stern anchor, would drop the big one over and dive down to set it by hand. Then, back to Scorpius, fire up the engine (thank heavens for keel coolers rather than a heat exchanger - no raw water intake to suck up sand), and use the hydraulic anchor winch to pull us into deep (enough) water. Never failed - although occasionally I'd have to run a snatch block to the top of the mast with a halyard and pull her off broadside - heeling to pick up the keel.

My gawd, those are great memories! ��

[Greatest Lakes]

Like the rest, it depends. Depends a lot on how fast I'm going and if I'm under sail or power. If I'm under sail, I'll tack at about 20'. The east side of Lake Michigan can develop long sand bars that seem to come out of nowhere near shore. When I had a full lead keel, I was less concerned about hitting the bottom. My Columbia 9.6 has a hollow fin on the back 1/3 of the keel, and that makes me a bit extra cautious. I had an alberg kittiwake, that one had no depth sounder and a full keel. That one had a knack for finding the bottom. Had to kedge it a lot, and heeling the boat over with a dinghy full of water was the key to getting it unstuck in the really rough jams. Since the water level has come back up in the lake, it has helped a lot.

[Group9]

There is an advantage to boating in shallow water. We were out 4th of July weekend and of course one non-boater asked what would happen if we sunk. I looked at the depth gauge and said, “Well right now, we would go down about three feet and hit the bottom, so we wouldn’t even have to get off the boat”.