Do Not Enter Unfamiliar Harbor at Night, and Other Lessons

[Christian Williams]

http://www.tampabay.com/sold-everything-to-sail-the-world-boat-sank-next-day

It was about 8:45 p.m. when they sailed into a new port, navigating a channel they had never sailed before, in the dark, fog rolling in.

Broadwell steered while Walsh stood at the bow, lighting their path with a spotlight, trying to figure out the navigational buoys. But the red and green buoys seemed out of place, they said, and the shoal wasn’t where their 2016-17 navigational charts said it should be. Had Hurricane Irma altered the channel?

 

[bgary]

Yeah, apparently (from what I've read) they were trying to line up "square" with the bridge, but that made the orientation of the channel markings confusing. Turns out, the bridge wasn't at 90 degrees to the entrance channel.

I remember one delivery bringing back a boat from Mazatlan, I stopped for fuel in Turtle Bay and then I went below to check stuff while my pickup-crew took us back out to sea.

Came back up on deck to find that we were going...uh... a really bad direction.

I asked him what he was doing (as I grabbed the helm), he said "I'm just lining up three white lights".

Those lights were on top of rocks.

I think if we'd had enough speed we could have bounced all the way off the first one and maybe made it to the second before sinking...

<O_O>

 

[Rick R.]

I’ve sailed in that pass. It’s difficult finding way into a known channel let alone one you do not know in the dark.

Good thing they weren’t lost.

 

[p.gazibara]

Yeah, apparently (from what I've read) they were trying to line up "square" with the bridge, but that made the orientation of the channel markings confusing. Turns out, the bridge wasn't at 90 degrees to the entrance channel.

I remember one delivery bringing back a boat from Mazatlan, I stopped for fuel in Turtle Bay and then I went below to check stuff while my pickup-crew took us back out to sea.

Came back up on deck to find that we were going...uh... a really bad direction.

I asked him what he was doing (as I grabbed the helm), he said "I'm just lining up three white lights".

Those lights were on top of rocks.

I think if we'd had enough speed we could have bounced all the way off the first one and maybe made it to the second before sinking...

<O_O>

And turtle Bay is a wide open entrance/exit! I'm slightly ashamed to say that we went in under cover of dark... Santa Maria too...

But when the entrance is really small or littered with obstacles, we slow our roll or find a nice roadstead or heave to until sunrise. Like we did at Playa Blanca in Nicaragua.

I wouldn't even try a shoaly entrance at night. Not only is there a whole, but usually it was created by some sort of current...