Navigation hints and shortcuts

[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.