Boating And Tides

[LuvBoating]

Whether you boat on a coastal, Intracoastal or river, how much do you check the Tide Table before deciding to take your boat out? I've read that some boaters pay little attention to "low tide times" and get stuck on a body of water at low tide.

Our boat, a 1992 Celebrity 200 Cuddy w/a 5.7/350 engine, is in Dry Storage by the St. John's River in Jacksonville, FL We are south of the downtown area, but different tide tables rule the river from Mayport past the channel where our dry storage is. Our boat draft is 3 1/2 feet. There is a channel that a boater has to go thru from dry storage to get to the river. When it's Low Tide, this channel get be fairly shallow. Don't remember if it's still there, but there was a warning buoy at the end of this channel that had a 3 on it, meaning 3 feet. Apparently there was a sand bar there. We got stuck there once.

​Now, I thought this AM, "I don't think the mechanic that does "water tests" on boats, and has on ours, checks the tide table before doing a test of something on a boat that requires the boat to be in the water". My wife told me, "he just raises our drive up no matter if the water is shallow (low tide) or deeper (high tide)." But, if the time is really close to Low Tide, and the channel is fairly low, the drive would have to be up for some distance. Obviously not all the way up, but still up.

​So, what about you and Tide Tables? .

 

[robert graham]

We boat the St. John's river down around Welaka so tides not so much of an issue there as up at Jacksonville, but I generally keep tides, depths, sand bars, oyster bars, etc. in my mind and keep one eyeball on my depth finder....plenty of stumps, logs and snags to think about around shallows/sand bars....raise the motor and go slow....

 

[joeanna]

I check the tides and weather conditions before I even hook up the trailer,

 

[Scott Danforth]

Check the tide tables every time i go out. I print out tide tables for every location i plan on hitting. I also check the weather Very important in the ICW here in Florida

 

[Old Ironmaker]

Something I have never looked at in my life. All freshwater and a tide on the Great Lakes is miniscule. We do get the Bath Tub effect when the Fall winds shift to the north, that's when I go slow in shallow waters. A 3.5 foot draught for a 20 footer is a lot isn't it? I assume 200 means 20'. My 19 foot 6" StarCraft's draft (draught in English) is only 18".

 

[jsparks747]

I check the tide tables before I leave and if I like how it is looking then I go to the ramp and do a visual check. I am lucky because wishing 15 miles of my house (about a 20 minute drive) there is a gently and a steep ramp.

 

[ondarvr]

The tide change here can be 15', I'll be in Alaska this week where it can be 25'.

Checking the tide may or may not be needed, it just depends on what you're doing. If the mechanic knows he can get in and out of the canal at any time during the tide, and he needs to just go out and check to see if the boats running correctly, then the tide makes little difference.

 

[dingbat]

For me, boating is a means to an end. Outside sustained high seas, not much will keep me at the dock if I need to be somewhere or fish to catch.

Tides have a large affect on how and where I fish but not so much on my navigation.

Outside of docking at a friends house, skinny water isn't an issue. An outboard powered boat with 14" of draft is quite forgiving in the shallows.

 

[Old Ironmaker]

Something I have never looked at in my life. All freshwater and a tide on the Great Lakes is miniscule. We do get the Bath Tub effect when the Fall winds shift to the north, that's when I go slow in shallow waters. A 3.5 foot draught for a 20 footer is a lot isn't it? I assume 200 means 20'. My 19 foot 6" StarCraft's draft (draught in English) is only 18".

Ooops, forgot to add the bottom end.

 

[grtomboy]

I check the tides well ahead of any trip. Though my Hurricane deck boat has quite a shallow draft, I am a novice and some of the channels in Florida ICW can get pretty skinny. Learned that the hard way.... before my BoatUS membership and before I knew that a boat as an "open cooled" engine.... and before I expanded my knowledge by tearing apart my Johnson 150 to get the sand out of the thermostats! But perhaps most importantly, itt also plays a HUGE factor on if we can take the dog to the sand bar

 

[yell03]

I bought my 1st boat on August 11th 2017, a 19' NauticStar 193sc deck boat with a 10" draft.
My boating is in NJ, mostly the ICW and backwaters of Wildwood and Cape May as well as the inlets if it is not too rough.

I check the Tide every day online and I have an app on my phone.

The difference between high and low tide is 6' and the water gets pretty shallow.

Coming out of my Marina at Dead Low Tide yesterday I was slightly to the right of the middle of the channel and I was in 1&1/2 feet of water.
At dead middle I was in around 3'.
Needless to day I turned around and practiced docking for an hour instead, well worth it.

In the main channels of the ICW even at high tide if you go on the wrong side of a marker you might be sitting in 2' of water.

So, yes, I check the Tide every day.

 

[JoLin]

Used to check the tables religiously before I went out. Not so much anymore. I have a few places I usually go to and I know the water now. In those places where I know the water is skinny, I raise the drives and motor through at low speed. I also take into consideration that the 'bottom' of Long Island's south shore (the Great South Bay) is sand or mud. If I were boating on the north shore (Long Island Sound) I'd pay more attention to the tides- the bottom is rocks.

That said, I ran aground plenty of times in the first few years. Once hard enough that I needed BoatUS to haul me off.

My .02

 

[tpenfield]

LuvBoating . . . I'd take a tape measure to confirm your draft . . . 42" ( 3.5 feet) sounds a bit high for a 20 foot boat. It may be more in the 32" range.

Regardless . . . if you get into skinny water, as we all do at times, you can certainly raise the outdrive up and travel at idle speeds until you get into deeper water.

I always check the tides, as I imagine most ocean going boaters do. What is important (for me) is the tide depth both coming and going, which is usually about a full tide swing apart. So, if I am going out for the the day at high tide, I'll probably be coming back at low tide. Another thing of importance (to me) is the actual tide depth. If it is during the days where the tide swing is the greatest, then low tide in my area is as much at 0.7' under the mean tow tide.

My mooring area is fairly shallow . . . about 30" at mean low tide. My boat draws about 26" with the outdrives tilted up so the lowest of tides during a month has my boat slightly sitting on the bottom (mud) for a hour or so. If my timing happens to be such that the water is extremely low, I have to wait it out in order to get the boat back to the mooring.

 

[achris]

Locally I almost never bother with checking tides. Weather, always. But then again, an 18" tide here is a big one. If I'm heading north, different story, you live and die on the tides up there. In places like Broome (2,500km north) the tides can be 25', even at Exmouth (1,200 north) they can be up to 18'.... Tides in the north also have a bearing on when the fish come on the bite...

Chris.....

 

[tpenfield]

It is interesting in my area around Massachusetts, . . . on Buzzards Bay (Cape Cod) we get about a 5 foot tide . . . on Martha's Vineyard there is about a 2 foot tide . . . North of Boston there is a 9 foot tide

 

[sphelps]

LB I'm north of you a little and do most all my boating in the ICW around Nassau Sound and FT George Inlet and from The Dames Point to Mayport ...
The last storm that came through did move some of the sandbars around at the FGI from what I saw last time out .. They even shifted some back up in the creeks from what I have heard . Just as mentioned take it slow and trimmed up .. A good ride around at low tide will give you an idea where to stay clear of . I usually like to put in a couple hours from low tide on the incoming .. That way ya got plenty of water for most of the day .. Here is a good link for tides in the area ..
https://www.weatherforyou.com/reports/index.php?forecast=tides&alt=tides&locid=1578