More money than sense it appears. Glad nobody lost their lives but that hurts knowing that yacht was totaled. When we retire and hit the water our plan is 10 knots. We aren't going to be in a hurry to get anywhere.
Ever been on the Dismal swamp canal? There is a LOT of history on the waterway.
10 knots is just dandy, and there really should be no need to get in a hurry if you are on the boat. What is the point? I am not a go fast sort of boater.
Never in the Dismal Swamp. Our waters range from Wilmington to Charleston. I love the Cape Fear, it is great water, wide and deep. When we got good water like that we do get up to cruise which is 20 knots or so. At 10 knots we only burn around 8-10 gallons per hour. At cruise we burn around 35 gallons per hour and WOT I have seen it hit 32 mph burning 65 gallons per hour...... We don't run WOT at all, last time was during Sea Trails when we bought the boat. LOL............... Cruise speed is plenty fast enough.
Knotright, yeah, need to run a little more I think....... We average about 100-120 hours per year on the two Breezes...... Now thankfully only One. We call Grand Dunes Marina home port. It is the closest Marina to our home and we can be on the boat in 20-22 minutes from home. That is really great. However, there is a few major downsides to that area. It is right in the middle of the "Ditch" as we call it. The 20+ mile stretch of the Waterway that was dug out. We are dead in the middle, and in between the two swing bridges, north at Little River, and south at Socastee. Roughly 10-11 miles to both, in either direction. The Ditch, its not very scenic, or just extremely nice water to run in. And you are not going to get anywhere in any hurry, its houses, docks and boats the entire way, mostly NO WAKE areas......... 8-10 mph top end, or we throw way too much wake up. So its an hour+ south to the Socastee swing bridge, then only a couple of miles further to where the Waccamaw comes in, and from there to Georgetown is some fantastic scenery and great water running from 15-35 feet all the way to GT. Very nice run, once you get past the damn bridge. But you run and hour + in the ditch!
Going North its the same, about 1 hour and 15 minutes to the Little River bridge. Same story, mostly no wake. But worse than going south we have the most dangerous part of the Intracoastal Waterway, the famous "Rock Pile". The Rock Pile area is really about 2 miles or less, but it is the most dangerous part of the entire Intracoastal, so I am told anyway. It is narrow, and the sides and bottom are lined with granite. High tide, much of that is submerged. So you stay dead in the middle, and you are very cautious about how much you give way. I don't give much, very little. And I will not give way to smaller vessels at all. Larger vessels than us, if we feel like we can't give way, we turn our ass around and go back until we can give way safely. I have been fairly cautious in this stretch of water. Always leaving early morning when less vessels are out. I also have a app and website that shows tugs and barges that might be in the area, I check that too before leaving. Fortunately I have never met a barge in that stretch, but should I ever, my ass will be turning the Breeze around, and headed out until I can give way enough without being in the Rock Pile.
Once you get North of Little River, the scenery gets better, but there are so many houses, docks and no wakes you cannot cruise for nothing. Its a total of 5 hours from MB to Southport for us, in the Breeze. Slow running. But like Silvr says, no need to be in a rush. I don't have a tremendous amount of Off Shore experience, have mostly run inside. But in the future I am going to give it a go in some of these trips, if it is nice, and I mean 2 ft seas or less! My Rule of Thumb, 2 ft or less is good, anything more I am SCARED......... LOL..... It would only be about an hour cruise from Little River Inlet to SouthPort running outside. With good water.........
Going south to Charleston is extremely scenic the entire stretch of Waterway. It is just beautiful and fairly wild. Not a lot of houses, boat docks and marinas. But it too is a very slow go for us, the water depths are TERRIBLE and you can only go in some areas at high tide. You must plan that stretch for High Tide at McClellanville, and even then it can be a little touchy feely. If you go through this at high tide you are in fair shape with 3-4 ft of water under the boat. We draft 4 feet. I have come through stupid at 3 hours before low tide, and sweat bullets, many times with 1 ft under the boat. Never again, high tide or no go......... This would be another stretch I will opt for running outside from GT to Charleston in the future, IF I HAVE 2 ft seas.......
We love it, love being on the boat. But we do have to pick and choose our times, when we get the time........ While being at the Dunes is great, as it is short ride from home, we are trapped in the ditch and between the bridges, so it is just not all that much fun to go on that spur of the minute boat ride, and not much of anywhere to go if you do.............
One thing we are looking very much forward to, currently we are at the end of one of the docks, on the T...... There is another 50 ft Sea Ray Sports Cruiser behind us. There is only about 1.5 feet between our aft platforms. Little tight. But he is moving to the slip just on our port side currently. When he makes that move, we are taking the entire T Dock, so no one will be behind us at all in the future, we have the entire dock on that side.
In the photo below you see both the Cool Breezes when we had two.... Well the spot where the 420 is in the photo is where the Sport Cruiser is now, when he leaves, we have the entire dock........ Nice!