GL: Sunken Yacht in the ICW near Belhaven, NC

[Dave Cooper]

It looks to me that this guy was either over running his eyeballs/skills or
was just going to fast for his navigational skills.

At 22 kts the turn he made at "17" gave him a chance to line up with "16" to
his port in about 5-7 secs after the 45 degree turn to starboard between
"19" and "17" (at 22kts this would be a fairly sharp turn in this boat).
Then he has 1.16NM to the "missing green" aka "15" which is only another
~40-45 seconds. Little time to (a) look around to see where it is and (b) to
realize that it is missing.

So again I'd say speed had a great deal to do with the collision as it is
apparent that he didn't know the route like the back of his hand so need to
lok for the mark, check the charts and look again. Too late!


At 8kts you would have had 3 times as much time to ascertain that the marker
was missing and take action based on that. More than likely you would have
avoided the same situation. I assume that this guy wasn't the first to have
passed thru here since the barge took it out. Why didn't they impale
themselves on it? Maybe they were going faster or maybe they kept closer to
the channel or maybe they has concluded it was missing.

This event started from "17" and was over in the time it took you to read
this email!!

Still don't think that speed had anything to do with it???

As always YMMV....

Dave & Nancy
Swan Song
Roughwater 58
daymarkers mark the narrow barge channel in the middle, so you really don't
have any visual aids to tell you where the 6' water lies.

When I do this route, I tend to slalom the markers, not too close, not to
far. With "15" missing, you only have "14" and "16" to port, if southbound,
to guide you. I don't think speed was a factor. Even a 7 kt trawler stands a

good chance of finding the submerged daymarker,  albeit with less damage.

On a personal note, I now remember "15" well. Ted, RIP, the former owner of
Dowry Creek Marina, when hailed to tell him that you are in the area and are

looking for a slip, would always say, "when you get to Green 15, put
yourself on a heading of 330 degrees until you see our markers and follow
them in."

He ran Dowry Creek Marina well, loved cruisers, threw a great beer can
chicken potluck every few days.  One of the few good reasons to NOT anchor
out on the ICW.

-- Jim Ague
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