GL: Mississippi River current

[Louis Letson]

Tom,
I have only limited experience on the Mississippi but will offer my
thoughts.
Current can be fierce, more than your top speed in the spring, slowing to
much less in the fall. In early spring the river may be closed to navigation
due to flooding.

Lots of BIG stuff floats down the BIG river.

>From Cairo ( the mouth of the Ohio ) to Grafton (mouth of the Illinois ) is
about 220 miles. Hoppie's ( @ mile 158 ) is the only place to get fuel of
which I am aware. My guess is that your range against the current even in
the fall will not be that far. If you top off at GTB that means you will
need fuel for >225 miles. I cannot remember any place for fuel from there to
Hoppies. There are no marinas. You can overnight at Hoppies, otherwise you
will have to anchor out. This means along side the channel usually in some
current. There are not many places where you can get off the river.

Wing dams are a serious consideration and a deterrent to getting out of the
channel. With a 5 ft draft you will need to stay well in the channel. You
might anchor between wing dams.

Assuming a current of 3 mph and a speed of 6 mph, in a 10 hour day, you
might cover 30 miles. This is probably unrealistic if you allow for
anchoring using some of your daylight hours. Throw in minimal bad weather or
mechanical problems and you will be lucky to average 25 miles per day. Then
it starts to look like a 10 day trip just to reach Grafton. (And remember
that it is another 330 miles upstream approximately to Chicago.) 

I have made this trip once when delivering a motor yacht from Clearwater to
Kenosha. And I have been thinking of taking a trawler from the Tennessee
River to Lake Michigan so I have given this a lot of thought.

But a trawler with max speed of 8-9 mph and range of 300-500 miles would be
far easier than what you are considering.
I am not saying it can't be done. I talked to one boater who was much older
than my 68 years and he claimed to have gone up the Mississippi in a 16'
outboard. But not everybody is Huck Finn.

All that said, it sounds like fun. Keep us posted on your progress.

Louis Letson