Harry Krause wrote:
FREDO wrote:
I just watched a program about the Coast Guard on TV.

A guy with a 40' boat hit an underwater piling and the boat sunk the next
morning.
Everyone got off the boat Ok.

My questions a
Aren't there any channel markers on the Columbia river?

Was this guy just an ignorant boater?

Don't they have channel maps?

IMHO You would think someone with an expensive boat would know a little more
about the place they are boating and not take risks like running WOT in a
shoals area.

I have found that even the little rivers in Indiana I used to run a jon
boat on have many shoals and sandbars and you have to be extremely careful
if you don't know the waters.

Fredo



I don't know about the Columbia River, but I have seen lots of
underwater obstructions revealed at very low tides that simply aren't on
the charts. Some of these aren't far below the surface even at high
tide. As you point out, charts are no match for local knowledge.


Local knowledge is no substitute for charts, either. Most prudent
mariners rely on both, when available, and if the guy in this example
was cruising without charts his excuse was almost certainly "I've been
through here two dozen times and I know the water like the back of
my.......(crunch)"

It is true that some hazards are uncharted, but it's not as common as
people would like to believe. There's a midchannel rock in the San
Juans that claims or damages several boats a year. Invariably, the
skippers protest, "It isn't on the charts!" In fact, if a boater is
trying to get by with a single 1:150,000 scale chart covering the
entire San Juan archipelago the rock does *not* show. Anybody entering
a restricted body of water, (such as the passage between two islands
where the rock in this example lurks) relying on a chart that doesn't
show enough local detail is asking for trouble and many find it.

Not only are charts required, but a set of proper charts. Local
knowledge is the frosting on the cake.