Island Landings

So for the first 20 years of my boat's life, it lived on a small lake. A real freshwater lake (not what, for example, Florida calls a lake). It had it's own small dock. The water level was very steady. If I wanted to beach my boat (say i was going to move the dock), I'd just beach it on our beach, no worries.

Well these days, nearly all my boating is done on salt water. No longer am I in the sticks in NH, now I'm right in Boston harbor. It's been an easy transition because my boat is so small, it doesn't really matter. My draft is all of 3 feet, if that. And I found all of the NOAA charts too.

But anyway, I always want to land on an island. There's plenty of islands in boston harbor. Some are rocky but most have "beach" type shores. But this whole "tide" thing has me afraid to land. I have power trim so I can easily get right to shore, but I'm always afraid that the tide is either going to go out and completely beach my boat, or it will come in and my boat will come loose and float away. It's also not the cleanest water in the world, so I don't really want to drop anchor a little ways out and swim to shore.

So is there some process I'm unaware of to do safe, dry landings in tidal areas? Dry meaning no swimming, I don't mind getting my feet wet.

The only plan I've been able to come up with was to get two anchors. And only do landings when the tide is coming in. Pull up to shore, drop one anchor right at shore, with plenty of slack. Then take the other anchor with a long line, and bring it way up the beach with me and stick it firmly in the sand. Then when the tide comes in, I can use the dry anchor's line to pull the boat to shore. I gotta be honest though, this doesn't seem like the best plan.

Here's my boat for reference (in it's first life)

Re: Island Landings

Don't beach it. You need to know the local tide tables. High/low tide time of day, and the amount of swing (# of feet) between the two. That'll tell you how shallow you can go when you arrive. Either keep enough water under the keel from the get-go, or be prepared to wade back out and reposition the boat if needed. It isn't a static environment, so you can't just set it and forget it. Tide height and timing change daily. I always look it up before I set out. If I'm staying out for the weekend I jot it down.

Position the bow anchor so it'll be in good water when the tide's out, and provide enough scope to keep it from dragging. Then back down toward shore until the stern is in enough water to keep from grounding (raise the motor to the highest safe running position as the water gets shallow). Then kill the motor, raise it the rest of the way, wade in and set your stern anchor. It can take a couple of tries to get everything situated, depending on the 'slope' of the bottom.

You need to know your true draft with motor down, raised to the highest safe running position, and fully raised. Your boat looks to be, what? 20' long? The draft of your boat with motor raised all the way is nowhere near 3 feet. Likely less than half that.

My .02

Re: Island Landings

I agree, just drop anchor in a safe depth. Bring along an inflatable maybe to use as a dingy.

Re: Island Landings

The boat's only 15'. I don't have room for an inflatable, i'd just use the inflatable instead if I had one. I actually have a tide app on my phone that so far has been pretty accurate. But it's only been a curiosity thing, since the river and harbor are 50'+/- deep for the most part.

Re: Island Landings

No idea if this would work for your situation, but when we are camping on fresh water lake I don't want to leave my boat beached and get the bottom all scratched up. I use an anchor buddy which is a like a bungee cord anchor rode. It is 15' long but will stretch to 50'. This allows you to have boat anchored out in deeper water but pull it to shore using a shoreline for boarding. Here is a pretty decent video of it in action on their website.

Re: Island Landings

I would not mind doing the same kind of thing and have been contemplating an inflatable dinghy for my 25 footer. When deflated, it would not take up all that much space and inflators are cheap enough.

What lake is that? Just curious, being a NH guy...

Re: Island Landings

I like that anchor buddy idea.

Re: Island Landings

Today I beached my boat on a boston harbor island for about 10 minutes, and the tide dropped enough in that 10 minutes, that I pulled a muscle in my back pushing it back out to sea. But hey at least I got out, that's something. But I was thinking, and maybe came up with a simpler solution to these island landing.

One long line
One main anchor with the line looped through but not tied. Drop that anchor 15' or so out (it gets deep fast) then pull to shore. Hop out and take a smaller anchor with me. Pull the rope from the sea, which should pull my boat out towards the wet anchor. Then tie off the line to the small anchor, and maybe bury it in the sand a bit.

That should work well, you think?
The area where I"m thinking about doing this is on the backside of the island. So the water is generally lake-calm, except for boat waves, which can be fairly sizeable but not crazy. That's a lot easier than having an expensive elastic line, then two regular lines, and two anchors.

Re: Island Landings

I say it was worth the back pain, getting a photo like this:
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc6/185544_10151191298964188_1658131971_n.jpg

That's the boston skyline way back under the sun.

Re: Island Landings

The anchor buddy and a shore spike will work perfect...your 2 rope thing will work as well. but I'd use the shore spike instead of an anchor thrown on shore. FWIW I usually recommend anchoring with the bow towards the waves...less chance of swamping it that way...you just have to make sure it's far enough out that the drive is not hitting on the beach.