On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 12:06:06 -0400, HK wrote:

When I lived along the ICW in Florida, I'd often see boats like yours
wallowing down the ditch, and a couple of miles south of us, about every
two weeks, grounding on what was then an unmarked sandbar.

On good weather days, we'd go out into the Atlantic 20 miles to fish off
some of the manmade reefs. Never saw any trawlerbarges like yours out
there. Sometimes we'd see a trawlerbarge or sailboat just outside the
St. Johns River, waiting for the outgoing tide and current to change so
they could head in to the intersection of the river and the ICW.

I doubt you run outside the ditch heading south in Florida. Why would you?

Well, as usual you are wrong on a number of key points. In particular
you seem to be confusing a stabilized, twin engine GB49 with some type
of lesser vessel. We don't wallow, ever. Never have, never will.

Running north we are typically 70 to 80 miles offshore passing
Jacksonville, close to the rhumb line from Port St Lucie to
Charleston, SC. Small wonder that you didn't see any similar boats,
it really wouldn't be safe in something like yours.

Coming south we like to hang right off the beach running outside
during the day, several miles off at night. It's much faster outside
because of deeper water and lack of low bridges (our air draft is over
28 feet). The scenery along the beach is quite nice also.