Navigation hints and shortcuts

[WalrusLike]

I have a couple of questions about my chart and also about safe shortcuts through Moreton bay.

Can anyone tell me what these chart symbols mean from my Navionics app?

81196

On another note: We have all seen or read about boats taking shortcuts around beacons and coming unstuck. But by the same token a runabout doesn't need the same water under it as a Gin Palace and so can afford to shortcut some channels.

Can I ask if your leaving the Brisbane river what beacon would you round before turning for the Sandhills? All the way to the last or earlier on?

[Richo1]

#1 submarine practice / military practice area

#2 indicates an area for ships wanting to clear quarantine.

[llourd]

the submarines mean that this is a submarine transit lane - probably nothing for us mere mortals to worry about.

[llourd]

for future reference...
http://www.digiboat.com.au/downloads/c-map_chart_legend.pdf

[GBC]

Those dashes are spaced out evenly all over that page - I'd be confident from that snapshot that they don't represent anything in the real world.

Boats and shortcuts - I'm not saying anything....

[Dicktracey]

As far as short cuts go in the bay You either have enough water or not enough water !
I would not be using the Iphone app to navigate The bay even though i have it as well, If you do not know the bay that well leave from shorncliffe ramp Come out through the markers and point at bulwer or Tangalooma.
Nothing to hit other than boats :0

I have a couple of questions about my chart and also about safe shortcuts through Moreton bay.

Can anyone tell me what these chart symbols mean from my Navionics app?

81196

On another note: We have all seen or read about boats taking shortcuts around beacons and coming unstuck. But by the same token a runabout doesn't need the same water under it as a Gin Palace and so can afford to shortcut some channels.

Can I ask if your leaving the Brisbane river what beacon would you round before turning for the Sandhills? All the way to the last or earlier on?

[Vitamin Sea]

Hi

I believe that it is good navigational practice to always follow the beacons, therby being in safe water at all times. It is just something you should do as the skipper.

Cheers

VS

[MikeyS]

Hi

I believe that it is good navigational practice to always follow the beacons, therby being in safe water at all times. It is just something you should do as the skipper.

Cheers

VS
Agreed. If you,ve laid a safe trail down the channel on the way out, it's a hell of a lot easier to follow the same trail back home, when its dark, or foggy, or the tide has dropped or the weather turned to crap.

Saw some guys spend about 6 hours stuck on a mudbank on a falling tide after they cut the last corner in Westernport Bay. Hilarious.

[Jerk n Wined]

NUMBER 1, there is a heap of ship wrecks in your area. I would start fishing and try all those wrecks

NUMBER 2, its snowing, so rug up or dont head out that day

:)))))

[wags on the water]

Boats and shortcuts - I'm not saying anything....

I'll agree to that - and if and when you do take a shortcut....you'll only do it once.

[Horse]

Boats and shortcuts - I'm not saying anything....

Learn the hard way like the rest of us

[WalrusLike]

Um... Er... I know I am tempting fate, and so far I always follow the beacons....

But I feel a bit silly at the end of the Brisbane leads waiting to turn when there is more water all around than in most of the southern areas I usually haunt.

I don't use Navionics to navigate... I have the Garmin 551s for that. I use it mostly to daydream on the commuter train.... That's where I am now and how I managed to be doing 37.5 knots in air conditioned comfort. :)

Stuck late at work today... I am going to miss the first 25 minutes of the game!!!

[Midnight]

You just have to be confident that you can navigate your vessel safely, beacons or no beacons. I look at it firstly from a safety point of view, and then from an insurance/court of law point of view.
"if I go here (outside of the clearly marked channel), can I justify my actions in court if need be?"

Ultimately the skipper is responsible for the operation of the vessel, at all times, anywhere.

Plenty of short cuts to be had around the bay, just check out the ones you are thinking of using with caution first.

Cheers,
Myles

[WalrusLike]

Yeah I agree... Safety first then also consider is it justifiable.

In the case of the river exit to Sandhills it seems reasonable to me that the channel there, especially at the last couple of beacons, is really for the benefit of commercial shipping.

If it was just a recreational boating channel those beacons wouldn't even be there. Maybe the first couple in case of river mud movement but that's all.

Having said all that, I may still stick to the channel just because I am superstitious! :)

[finga]

Here's a hint.
Never reply on the GPS for navigation. They lie just like those bloody fish finder thingamejigs.
Learn how to use a paper chart and learn the area.
Have you got a paper chart on board?? It's required as part of the safety equipment isn't it?

Too many people have relied on their GPS and ended up on a rock wall.

[WalrusLike]

Yeah mate got a paper chart... And have studied it too.

I had a yacht as my first boat. 4.5 feet of keel. I got stuck inside manly boat harbour once in the marked channel. People on the rock wall got treated to my wife and her friend hanging off the boom leaned as far out as possible so we could tilt the keel off.

That was 30 years ago. Travelled across the bay on compass with no visibility in rain squalls using tidal flow, leeway, course made good. Actually, generally I missed! :)

So I aren't approaching this as dumbly as it might sound.

[GBC]

Your chart will have the soundings for the outer bar for the river mouth. No trailer boat is running aground anywhere to the near South of the markers past Fisherman Island.
In this particular case I'd suggest you get used to cutting South out of the channel and running basically parallel to it, or any bearing around to the top mark at Mud.
Coming home on a run out tide with a decent afternoon onshore wind, inbetween the markers is not a place for the faint hearted in trailer boats. Because it is dredged and dead straight, the difference in the fetch induced wave height from inside to outside has to be seen to be believed. Running a couple of hundred yards to the south, then zipping in around the rock wall (not too close) is a trick that will save your boat one afternoon when it turns nasty.

No more shortcuts though!! ;)

[WalrusLike]

Thanks GBC that's a good tip. I hadn't thought about the wave behaviour in the channel apart from the 'further away from the big boat is good' thought.

So now thinking about it..... Wouldn't the transition line be the bad spot? Would the deeper water in the channel drop the wave height a tad?

Ah.... Hang on.... you are saying the fetch along the river line has built up the wave so moving offline gets you away from it. Is that what you are saying?

[GBC]

Yep, the amount of water running out of the river and down the channel flows much faster than on the surrounding flats. You can end up with pressure waves that are 8ft and stationary some days. This isn't overly common, and most rec fishos don't leave home on those forecasts, but I have been caught out by an afternoon NE before that decided to spring up from nothing. We had to come off the plane to make it through and capped a few to boot. Takes a fair while to get through trying to slow run against 4 kts of run out tide - same as crossing a really long bar except you have to drive through the back of every bloody breaking wave to get home. Sit on the back of one and you don't go anywhere...
The flats arent too pretty in those conditions either, but they are the safer bet.

[WalrusLike]

Was having a look at the chart for a Scarby to Yellow Patch trip for whale watching.

Do you guys go east till the main channel or cut up on the NE course through the western banks? (trying to keep in the deeper water)

I suspect that's a bad spot if wind against tide.

[SUPERDAFF]

Walrus, back in my little tinnie days when I lived on the Redcliffe peninsula, I used to run a direct line from Scarborough towards Tangalooma and turn north a few hundred metres from the Moreton Island's western shoreline, hugging the beach up and around Comby. Did this for a number of reasons including:
- It keeps you south of the Central and Western Banks - they can get unpleasant.
- Deeper water all the way
- There's a bit more cross-bay traffic as a back-up including ferries
- It's impossible to get lost when it turns evil
- You generally get more wind protection from the island
- You often come across a school of pelagics
- It's only a few km longer and you've got some good sight seeing spots along the beach, have a swim etc.



Was having a look at the chart for a Scarby to Yellow Patch trip for whale watching.

Do you guys go east till the main channel or cut up on the NE course through the western banks? (trying to keep in the deeper water)

I suspect that's a bad spot if wind against tide.