On Apr 17, 9:23 am, Chuck Gould wrote:
On Apr 16, 10:47?pm, dene wrote:



You're correct on all counts, Chuck. ?We did do the spring line trick
but it didn't work. ?Couldn't get the stern to spin against the
current. ?Fortunately, LaConner will not be my home port.

Were you tied parallel to the channel on a guest dock or in one of the
slips back behind? Your description of events leads to to suspect you
were in a slip, as if you were on the guest dock and headed "upstream"
for that portion of the current cycle you would have had a lot more
luck releasing the bow first, letting the current carry it out a bit
from the dock, and then using a *lot* of throttle to get out into the
channel before you find yourself in real trouble with any boat that
might be behind you. I think that current at LaConner can run
3-4 knots routinely and somewhat more during extreme tide changes.
(I've personally been known to send the wife up to town to do some
shopping for a couple of hours and wait for things to settle down a
bit when currents there are extreme. Sometimes the smartest thing to
do is wait for better conditions).

If you were back in the covered slips, you would have had to turn
against the current. That's a lot more difficult than getting away
from a parallel side tie.
Fortunately, the current is not as severe as you get closer to shore
as slips are between a couple of points. Even the inside of the guest
dock has less current- at last near the surface- than the outside, as
the float itself diverts some of the flow from the channel.

Worse than your speculation. We were on the walkway which is 90
degrees to the channel. The bow was facing the reservation.
So....the current was hitting us square on the starboard side.

Normally, we'd waited until the afternoon for the tide to change but
time was a luxury we didn't have. Fortunately, we had a captain who
knew what he was doing. It would have been an impossible situation
for my wife and I.


The most important thing to do is be out on the water and enjoying
life.
Whether you go sail or power is perhaps the second most major
consideration, the general style of boat is probably third, and the
brand of boat is no higher than 4th. IMO. As long as you figure out a
way to go boating, you'll be happy.

True!

But give your Carver a chance. There had to be some reasons that you
were attracted to this boat and this concept; and unless those have
changed a lot
(in favor of a more trailerable boat?) it will be just as true that
there will be learning curve for almost everybody with any new boat.- Hide quoted text -

We were attracted to the layout....still are. I don't know if you saw
it but it is a very comfortable boat, especially for me as a six
footer. Our idea was to explore the Sound in the offseason while
incurring charter income in the summer. However, given it's toad-like
characteristics, we might be better served with a smaller boat and use
an Van RV (which features king size bed, galley, head, etc.) as our
means to creature comforts, vs. the floating RV the Carver is. We
bought the Carver and Campion at the same time, designating the
Campion for the Columbia River. What I didn't anticipate was the ride
and handling characteristics of the Campion. Easily the nicest
handling boat we've had (it's our 4th 22+ footer). The previous owner
used it for Coast Guard Aux. purposes in Oceanside Ca. He claimed it
could handle most sea conditions and he's right. This "surprise" got
us thinking about the feasability of simply transporting it to the
Sound and back, or leaving it in a boatyard for weeks or months vs.
paying for moorage for a large, gas guzzlin toad that limits us by
land and sea.

The day will come when we will want another boat the size of the
Carver, particularily if we live on it for extended period of times.
But for now, we're limited to the weekends, which begs for more
flexibility than the Carver can give us.

-Greg