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Don't try to launch on opening day...

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delliottg
Former Mainsheet C250 Tech Editor

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USA
4479 Posts

Initially Posted - 05/06/2007 : 20:37:14

Rita & I had planned to go to Blake Island this weekend, a bit south & west of Seattle. We were going to meet a couple of friends who were headed there as well, who had set out on their 43' Polaris the night before. What we didn't take into account was that yesterday was the start of "boating season" in Seattle.

We prepped the boat for launch on Friday, figuring on an early enough start on Saturday to be able to rig & launch from Alki a few hours before low tide which was set to be at nearly 1pm. It was going to be a slightly negative tide, but Alki's got a nice long paved ramp and it shouldn't have been a problem. It took us a bit longer than planned to get away from the house, but we'd allowed for some extra time and hadn't used up all of our allowance yet. As we drove down the approach road to Alki, we started seeing lots and lots of trailers parked on the side of the road. This was the first inkling that our plans were not going to go as expected.

The parking area at the launch was packed solid, we watched a guy in a RV van disconnect his trailer so he could park next to it in single parking, the only spaces left. There were easily fifty boats within 300 yards of the launch, most of them fishing I think. Since we were planning on being gone overnight, we really didn't want to leave our truck & trailer out on the street, and there didn't seem to be much in the way of people pulling their boats back out, at least not in the half hour we waited around to watch & see. We called our friends and let them know what was going on, and asked them for advice. The next closest launch that could take our wing keel was up to the north at Shilshole Marina. This would double our transit time to Blake or so, but still seemed pretty doable since it was still several hours before low tide, and Shilshole is a relatively easy shot up highway 99. So, reluctantly, we left for Shilshole.

We drove from West Seattle back towards downtown with the intention of jumping on 99 to head north, but the exit for 99 was blocked and there was a police car with it's flashers a bit further on. As we crossed over 99, I couldn't see any traffic, north or south bound. Our only real option at this point was I-5 north. Of course with 99 closed, I-5 was packed nearly as solid as the launch at Alki. We observed a number of emergency vehicles heading towards where we'd just been, but never discovered what happened. Eventually we got through downtown Seattle and got off our exit for Shilshole. For those of you unfamiliar with Seattle, the neighborhoods just north of downtown are very old, with narrow streets, not exactly fun to navigate with a WK behind you. People park in the street, so you have to change lanes constantly to get around the cars, anyway, a bit nervewracking. All in all the dozen miles or so we traveled to get to Shilshole took us about an hour.

We finally get to Shilshole, and the primary parking lot is nearly full, but the next lot north is basically empty, plenty of space to park & rig, and an easy shot to the launch. This was going to be pretty easy. The biggest problem I foresaw at the time was that the wind was going to be on our nose for the whole run south to Blake.

We parked the truck, leashed up the hound, and took a walk down to the ramp to see what we could see. It was nice & steep, just what you want for a keel boat, but there was one problem. The paved part of the ramp ended with a 6-12" drop off (which is very-very clearly marked on each of the pontoons, a nice touch I thought), and that drop off was only in about 2-3' of water, and the tide still had another three hours to go out. It was just about 10am, low tide was to happen at 12:55, so I figured we had the better part of seven hours before we could launch, at best.

Here's the launch, this was taken about two hours after low tide. You can see the yellow lines on the pontoons marking the end of the paved ramp fairly clearly, just forward of the boat's nose.

There was a race starting just out from the marina, so we sat on a bench and watched, talked about what we planned to do, etc. We knew we had hours before we even had to rig, no point in doing it in the middle of the day with the sun bouncing off the deck. If nothing else, sailing teaches you patience.

We sat in the truck watching the spinnaker sets of of successive fleets of race boats as they headed off to the north. We saw a larger sailboat getting ready to launch, so we decided to go walk back to the ramp to watch. I was curious how they were going to launch, but it turned out to be a trimaran with dagger boards and he only needed about two feet of water to launch in. We watched them for a while, and helped fend the starboard amah off while they drove their van back to parking. Turned out they were supposed to be in the race that was happening, but it was a two day race so they weren't too concerned to be missing their start. They figured they could catch up on the way to Port Townsend.

We walked back to the truck, we still had hours & hours before we could launch, so Rita decided she wanted to take a nap, there was little else for us to do while waiting, so we got her comfortable in the boat and I grabbed my chart and GPS out of the ditch bag and headed back to the cab of the truck so I wouldn't disturb her.

Our planned route to Blake Island was basically a beam reach, the wind would have been a bit forward of the port beam and we could possibly have done it on a single tack till we rounded the island just south of Bainbridge Island. The route from Shilshole to Blake on the other hand was basically due south, straight into the wind so I thought I should do some calculations to figure out about how long it might take us to get there. Plus I didn't have any GPS coordinates for the trip from Shilshole. It wasn't a complex trip, but I figured I'd have to make a series of tacks close to Bainbridge, and there was a reef at a point I wanted to make sure to avoid. There was also the north/south traffic lanes for shipping that I wanted to stay out of, new radar reflector not-withstanding. Of course I didn't have my proper charting stuff with me, it was sitting in a box where that morning I'd thought, nah, I won't need this stuff today. So, I dug up a pair of foldable pliers to use as dividers, my cell phone has a calculator, the chart has all the necessary information, it was just a matter of putting it all together:

Note the spiffy dividers at the top right, they actually worked fairly well as long as I didn't have to measure very far.

I calculated that my straight line distance was about 13 nautical miles, or about 15 statute miles. Figure 1-1/2 times that for tacks and I'm looking at about 23 miles to cover before dark. Hmmmm...I figure that the very earliest I can possibly launch is 4pm, and more likely 5pm. I was desperately trying to remember the rule of twelves for figuring tides, but I wouldn't have had enough information anyway, I only knew when low-low tide was, and not how high the next tide was, or if it was low-high or high-high (Seattle has semi-diurnal tides). I figured I would be able to figure it once I was back on the boat, but didn't want to wake Rita yet. My Chapmans was in the library on board, but I'd neglected to grab it earlier. My GPS was telling me that sundown was at 7:29 (this turned out to be wrong by an hour, but it wouldn't have made much difference in my subsequent calculations, I'd set it to GMT -8 instead of GMT -7, but this wouldn't occur to me until hours & hours later), so I figured we only had maybe three hours of useful light to launch & get to the island, find our friends, and hope for a mooring ball to tie up to.

Here is where the realization crashed in on me that I wasn't going sailing this weekend. Neither of us has ever anchored a boat, and since there were a million people on the water yesterday, the probabilities of getting a mooring ball were slim (to be confirmed later by our friends already there), so we were looking at the quite real possibility of anchoring in the dark. Twenty years ago I may have not even had this train of thought, but I didn't have a family back then, and the last thing I want our first trip overnight to be was a yelling fest as we tried not to crash into other boats in the moorage...in the dark.

The upshot was, we decided to walk the hound back to the launch, have a nice late lunch of fish & chips, watch the Lasers finish their race, take one last look at the launch to confirm what we already knew, it was too shallow to launch, and wouldn't be high enough to do so before we'd run out of time to safely make it to the island, and head home.

Earlier in the day I'd gotten pissed about the whole thing, but sitting & watching the racers, feeling the wind on my face, etc. reminded me of sailing my old catamaran when I'd get becalmed out on the lake. I had no engine, and paddling a cat is a royal PITA, so I learned to lay back on my trampoline, talk to my dog, watch the birds play with my wind tells, and just hang out, "lepak" in Malaysian. I started feeling better about it, the relief in not going was evident on Rita's face, she's not used to me being concerned about anything, and I'd telegraphed my worries to her. I was exhausted when I got home, slept for nearly six hours straight, woke up disoriented, didn't know if it was day or night, etc.

I regret not being able to go, but I think we made the right decision, and I think I'd make the same decision next time.

David
C-250 Mainsheet Editor

Sirius Lepak
1997 C-250 WK TR #271 --Seattle area Port Captain --

Edited by - delliottg on 05/07/2007 19:00:42

britinusa
Web Editor

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USA
5404 Posts

Response Posted - 05/07/2007 : 08:38:53

David, great write up, and I agree, the right decision. Really enjoyed your comentary and could imagine your situation thou I have never been to seattle.

thanks for sharing.

Paul

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delliottg
Former Mainsheet C250 Tech Editor

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USA
4479 Posts

Response Posted - 05/07/2007 : 11:14:56

Thanks Paul,
I thought about this quite a bit yesterday, and still think we made the right decision. There's something to be said for just going out and doing something, learning from your mistakes and moving forward. But there's also something to be said for ensuring that you still have a sailing partner at the end of the day.

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welshoff
Captain

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USA
253 Posts

Response Posted - 05/07/2007 : 13:40:57

David,
Here is a link to [url="http://www.iac.wa.gov/maps/default.asp"]Boat Launches[/url]in WA State.

It sounds like you had a great weekend planned. But exercising you patience, ensures you will have many more sailing adventrues to come (especially with a sailing partner).

Pending on where you are coming from, you may want to consider the boat launch in Port Orchard. I haven't launched there, but I have been there and it looks like a good launch.

Edited by - on

delliottg
Former Mainsheet C250 Tech Editor

Members Avatar

USA
4479 Posts

Response Posted - 05/07/2007 : 14:37:19

Wil,
Port Orchard's on the other side of the sound from where we live, so that'd be a bit of a drive. We're about 30 miles east of Seattle or so.

Great site for doing research, thanks!

Edited by - delliottg on 05/07/2007 14:37:38

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