# Is 7-foot Draft in Chesapeake near Annapolis a mistake?



## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

Hi, new member here looking for some Annapolis area advice:

We are moving to the Annapolis area this summer. Most likely the Broadneck/Arnold/Severna Park area and therefore will likely be keeping a boat on the east shore of the Severn or possibly Whitehall Creek or Mill Creek. 

We expect to do a lot of overnight to week-long trips on the Bay. We are a family of five (3 kids ages 9 to 16) and our ideal boat is a 3-cabin 40 to 45 footer so that we don't need to convert the salon area to sleeping each night. Longer term we foresee longer trips to Mystic/Block Island/Nantucket and eventually Maine/Nova Scotia/Newfoundland.

We are considering an early 90's 44' Jeanneau Sun Magic because the layout (3-cabin not 4-cabin) is absolutely perfect and in no small part because it could come at a very good price. 

The downside is it has 7-feet of draft (and in-mast furling).

Would we be nuts to bring this deep a draft into the area? What kind of MLW at the dock (or mooring) figure should I use as a minimum relative to a given draft? We don't really see ourselves wanting to push way up some mosquito-filled creek. Most of our sailing has been eastern L.I. Sound/Mystic Ct. area and we're used to long dynghy rides anyway. 

Thanks for your input.
JeffH you still out there?


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## DrB (Mar 29, 2007)

*May be limiting...*

In the Main Bay, you would be fine, but a lot of areas would be off limts, especially towards the shores, creeks/coves and north bay. Most sailboats that I have seen in the bay have 5' or less drafts without board or board up.

My dad used to have a house on a creek just off the Eastern Bay/Prospect Bay and my cousin has a 40 ft Sabre docked at his house on a small inlet off the Wye River. My dad's dock had roughly a 6 foot water depth at high tide and just under 4 at low tide. However, many times the creek would be lower during an lower tide cycle, so much so that you could easily see the bottom. Having a sailboat with any real draft was impossible. A few houses up from him, towards the bay, there were bigger boats, but still the creek maybe had only 8 to 10 feet at the mouth at high tide.

My cousin's (off the Wye River) boat sits basically on bottom on his keel in his slip. There are some days he really has to rock the boat with the motor to get it off. Once in the Wye, he is fine.

You would be able to go more places in the Bay if you could find a boat with less draft.

DrB


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

Gill,
Jeff would be the expert on the Annapolis area, but I live and sail a bit further south, in Calvert County. I would not consider a 7 ft. draft for my purposes. But then, I couldn't even get a 7 ft draft into my harbor (Flag harbor) on anything but a high tide. You would have trouble "gunk-holing" in the classic sense on the ChesBay, but probably would not have trouble getting into most of the normal marinas. In short, you might miss out on some opportunities, but could probably get by with a bit of planning.


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## SailorMitch (Nov 18, 2005)

I sail out of the Patapsco and gunkhole quite a bit both north, south and east from there. Jeff used to live off Mill Creek, and may still, so he can speak about draft there. His boat draws over 6' if I recall and he says he has very few problems.

My boat has a wing keel and draws 4'2". I'm spoiled in where I can go. In general, 7' is doable but watch the charts for channels into some places because those may only have 6-7 feet of water to begin with. 

One thing about water depths in creeks and marinas -- if there's a strong north wind for any length of time, water will be blown down the bay. Depths could drop another 2-3 feet below MLLW depending on conditions. That can happen several times a year so keep that in mind with where you keep the boat.


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## JohnRPollard (Mar 26, 2007)

You will be distinctly limited in where you can go on Chesapeake Bay with a 7' draft vessel. You say that you don't plan to explore far up creeks, but it is not the getting far up the creek that is the problem -- it's the getting into the creek at all. Most creeks silt-in near their mouths, so usually the shallowest part is the bar at the entrance. 7' draft would make virtually every "special" place we sail to off-limits, even though we usually anchor in much deeper water. 

On top of that, you will need a slip with a MLW of 9+ feet if you want to come and go at will. The "normal" astronomical tide range in most places on the Bay is only a couple feet, but the seiche tide can and does add several more feet to that quite regularly. Normally you will want minimum 1-2 feet deeper than your draft for the MLW at your slip.

I understand the temptation to go with the deeper draft. And for your other purposes (heading up the New England coast) it would be fine. But it sounds like your predominate use for the foreseeable future will be C Bay. Get a boat that will work well for how you primarily intend to use the boat, and that won't cost you a fortune to keep at a slip. My recommendation would be to keep it under 6' draft.


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## chucklesR (Sep 17, 2007)

I live on the creek to that bounds the northern side of the Broadneck penisula - Deep Creek on the Magothy River. 
7 feet of draft will not work on this creek, or most of the others in the area unless you like to bump and wait for the tide. 
I only draw 20 inches boards up, 5.5 ft boards down and I bump here and there.

The good news is there are many, many boats in the area. If you can adapt to a catamaran I might suggest taking a look at them, they are well suited for family life on the anchor.


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## camaraderie (May 22, 2002)

I think a 7 foot draft would be a HUGE mistake...6 ft. is tough enough and I sailed the bay for 20+ years.


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## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

Did I hear my name being called? I still sail out of Mill Creek (the one off of Whitehall Bay rather than the one off of the Magothy, Patapsco or Great Wicomico Rivers). I am not precisely sure how to answer your question. I have raced and cruised on boats that drew as much a 8 feet and it hasn't been much of a problem, but even at 7 feet, draft does begin to limit where you can go a little. 

When I first came to the Bay I was told that 4'-6" was the limit for cruising the Bay. To that I say, hogwash. My boat draws 6'-4" and before that I had a boat for 13 or so years that drew just a tad under 5 feet. There were few if any places that I can think of where I could have gotten into with a 4'6" draft but that I couldn't get into with a five foot draft. 

There certainly are a very few places where I used to go with 5 foot draft that are off limits with 6'4 draft, but there have been relatively few places that I routinely anchored with the old boat that I can't anchor in now. The greater speed of the new boat actually gives me more choices of anchorages that I can sail to during a weekend, even if some of the places I might have ducked into with the old boat is off limits. I have found it a little harder to find anchorages where there is room to swing the 20 larger circle that is requird to allow my new boat to swing on her anchor. 

But that is with 6'4" draft. Before I bought Synergy, I had considered a number of boats with 7 foot draft or so. I really looked closely a variety of locations and concluded that the extra 8 inches would make a difference. While I have nearly 10 feet of water at my dock, the entrance channel into Mill Creek has shoaled in so that I probably occasionally stir the top of the silt slipping in an out during the seriously low tides during the winter. On those days 7 feet draft would not get through. There is a similar hump in Whitehaul Creek that would preclude entry during the lowest tides. The 8" draft difference was enough that I eliminated several models from my list of potential candidates when I bought Synergy. (Of course that decision was not easy since several of these eliminated models offered as much as 15 seconds a mile better sailing performance.) 

The decision becomes much harder on boats that are bigger than my 38 footer because a lot of performance is sacrificed with drafts under 7 or so feet, unless the boat is a keel centerboarder, in which case there is some loss but it is minimal. 

So having jawed my way completely around this, I guess I would say that 7 feet would eliminate some anchorages, but the Bay is so richly endowed with good deep water anchorages that 7 foot draft may be perfectly Okay for many, if not most folk.

Jeff


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## JohnRPollard (Mar 26, 2007)

Jeff_H said:


> The greater speed of the new boat actually gives me more choices of anchorages that I can sail to during a weekend


That is a fair statement to a certain extent. However, I would just comment that the extra speed (usually only to windward) is not always the advantage it first seems.

I cannot count the times we have dusted shoal draft and wing-keeled boats on long upwind legs with our weatherly fin keel, only to have the nearly-horizoned boat proceed to cut over a shoal that we had to circumvent and thereby save themselves literally miles of distance travelled -- in the event arriving ahead of us. So unless you plan to spend most of your time out in the deep water of the bay (for instance if you race a lot), the upwind speed advantage of the deeper draft will in many instances prove illusory in the context of elapsed time while passagemaking.



Jeff_H said:


> The decision becomes much harder on boats that are bigger than my 38 footer because a lot of performance is sacrificed with drafts under 7 or so feet, unless the boat is a keel centerboarder, in which case there is some loss but it is minimal. Jeff


This is absolutely true, and is the source of quandary for many Bay sailors that want to move up in size without unduly sacrificing performance. It is one thing to say "keep the draft under 5 feet" when we are discussing 30-footers and smaller, and quite another when talking about 40+ footers. There has to be a sliding scale as the boat gets larger, where we live with some of the downsides of deeper draft while we enjoy the benefits of a larger boat. Still, for a boat intended primarily to explore and cruise Chesapeake Bay, I would not want a draft much over 6 feet, preferably under.


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## ehmanta (Sep 12, 2006)

I have raced with boats that drew a little over 8' and the issue is not what you experience along the way, its when you go into harbors, creeks, marinas etc...
Another important thing to consider is being hauled out.....many, many , many marinas have skinny water at the boat lift 
My boat draws 4'-2" with the board up and nearly 8' with it down, we never keep it down when going into creeks!!!


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## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

One additional thought (and actually Chuckles' mention of Deep Creek off the Magothy is a good example to illustrate my point) on the point that I was trying to make about the sheer number of anchorages on the Chesapeake. 

My old boat could get into Deep Creek but there wasn't room to swing on the hook. My current boat can't get in there at all, at least past marker R-4. But if I am rembering coorectly, I have anchored in Cypress Creek, Dividing Creek, Black Hole Creek, Broad Creek, Cold Spring Cove on Forked Creek, Sillery Bay, and in the large bights behind Gibson Island with both boats, all of which are off of the Magothy River, which is just one of many rivers that are easy one day sails from Annapolis. On the other hand, both boats could get into Grays Creek on the Magothy, but there was inadequate swinging room in there for Synergy while Rugosa was tight but fine. 

Jeff


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## chef2sail (Nov 27, 2007)

We are in Rock Creek off the Patapsco with SailorMitch and have a C&C with a k/c 4'6-7'2". There are not many places we havent sailed to and explored in Bat North of the West River that we havent been able to navigate with the flexibility of this configuration. Our creek would be challenging for a 7ft draft, however I can count the numerous times I have forgotten to pull up the cb and realized it when I got into my slip and tied up. As discussed by others their are many anchorages which will not be avaiable to you such as in the Chester river, Whorton Creek inside, that with syaing in the 6 foot keel range would open up. We freuquently raft up with a 65 foot Sundeer draft 8 ft in our club and often have limited picks of where to anchor. As mentioned he is much faster in the open waters of the bay. but often gets beaten in rondevous where some of the us can cut miles off our courses going in shallower water.

The point about the few times a year the NW winds feature a blowout tide is also valid. I would look for a different keel depth if you are primarily staying in the bay.

Dave


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## svsirius (Jan 14, 2007)

We cruised the bay in a Frers 36 for about 10 yrs. It drew 7'2", and it was doable but not desirable, We also raced the boat so accepted the compromise. We now own a Moody 47 w/ a K/CB drawing 5'3" board up and 9 ft down. For bay cruising 5 ft made a big difference as to where we would go how far up favorite creeks we could anchor it changed the bay experience. Of course offshore that 9ft board makes all the difference as does 47 ft LOA. So my suggestion is look for a boat that draws a little less, there are lots of boats avail now, it's a buyers market so I'm sure you can find something that has the correct insides but still gives you the sailing flexibility you want/need.


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## PalmettoSailor (Mar 7, 2006)

*Midbay*

I don't have near the experience of some of the previous posters, but I would find a draft over 6' very limiting in the area of the Chesapeake I sail. My previous boat had a 4'3" wing keel and I had to pay close attention getting in and out of Broad Creek. Fishing Bay and Jackson Creek are somewhat deeper. I'd be on needles and pins getting tucked into the anchorages on Carter Creek and the Corrotoman with a draft of 6' or more.

I also don't know why you'd need 7 feet of draft for acceptable performance on the bay. We crew on a Tartan 40 with a PHRF of 114 and do pretty good when there is some wind. That boat has a draft around 5'. There are some deep draft boats in the fleet but their owners are die hard racers and the boat spends its life going from the slip to the race area and back, so they are not concerned about depths in unknown areas.

For your stated use, I'd think one of the big Hunters, Bene's or Catalinas with shallower draft would be a better choice to experience the bay with your family but that's just me. Even with shallow draft you'd be faster than many if not most other boats just by sheer waterline.


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## TAK (Jul 14, 2003)

Good comments.. One thing i might add is that with the advent of GPS and bluecharts.. its now much easier to know what your depth is at all times.. 

I doubt I would go for a 7 foot draft boat but you might be ok w/ it.


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

*Thanks for help*

Thanks everyone for the helpful and illuminating info. Think i'll avoid the deep draft. Better safe than sorry. Will keep searching. Thanks again.


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## btrayfors (Aug 25, 2006)

Gillhead,

Before you rule out the Jeaneau 44 completely, I think you ought to have a look at the charts for the Chesapeake Bay.

I've been sailing the Bay most of my life, have a 42' sloop which draws 6.5', and have never had a problem finding great places to sail and to visit. The Bay has about 5,000 miles of shoreline and many, many deep tributaries. I basically agree with Jeff's first post, i.e., 7' isn't a show stopper at all.

Off the top of my head here are just a very few of the many destinations from Annapolis:

Annapolis Harbor, Severn River, Back Creek
Rock Hall - Swan Creek
Baltimore - Inner Harbor
Patapsco River - lots of places
Magothy River
Chester River all the way to Chestertown and more
Sasafrass River all the way to Georgetown
The C&D Canal, Delaware River to Philadelphia or south to Cape May
Havre de Grace
Eastern Bay and St. Michaels
Choptank River and tributaries
Oxford
Cambridge
Knapps Narrows
Harris Creek
Broad Creek and tributaries
Solomons Island
West River
South River
Herring Bay
Potomac River all the way to Washington, DC (all 95 miles)
Little Choptank River

And those are just in the Upper Bay.

Literally there are dozens more great places easily accessible with a 7' draft.

Again, suggest you sit down with a Cruising Guide and a ChartKit of the Bay; you'll be amazed at all the options. 

Your kids will be grown before you're able to visit all of them 

Yes, it's true: with a 3-4' draft you could visit even more great places. Maybe something to think about when the kids are out of the house and you could do with a smaller boat!

Bill


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## JohnRPollard (Mar 26, 2007)

Bill,

I have to say I'm relieved that none of our "secret spots" are on your list!!   Then again, very few of them can be entered with 7' draft. 

I was however surprised to see you list Knapps Narrows. That is not a cut I'd venture through with 7' draft, nor much over 5' for that matter, except maybe with a good tide boost.

Otherwise it's a nice list of deepwater locations throughout the Upper Bay. And that's good advice about the kids, too. Just yesterday it seems we had two of three in diapers aboard, and now my son is beginning to show interest in certain universities! Seize the day!


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## btrayfors (Aug 25, 2006)

Hi, John...

Yes, Knapps Narrows is probably not a place you'd want to go *through*, since the channel is shallow on the eastern side of the bridge.

However, it's a great *destination* for seafood and just plain hangin' out on a summer afternoon, and you should be able to carry 7' to the marina; I know my son's boat which, like mine, draws 6.5' made it there easily just last summer.

See...that's one out of the house who already has a 42' sloop like dad 

Bill


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## SailorMitch (Nov 18, 2005)

Knapps Narrows was dredged last spring and carried 7-9 feet on my one trip through there last summer. Kent Narrows was dredged also about the same time.

And some of the creeks listed -- you'll be able to enter them, just not go very far up them. 

And with a draft of 7 feet there will be no cutting across the Swan Point Bar to get into Swan Creek, which won't be an issue anyway if you are coming from the south.


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## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

I had no problem coming around Swan Point Shoal from the Magothy at Green 3 but once inside Swan Creek I found the place so packed that there wasn't room to swing. Ended up sailing up the Chester my one of my old favorites, Grays Inn Creek. 

Jeff


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## chef2sail (Nov 27, 2007)

I like Grays too. My favorite is Cackaway Island or the Corsica.

Dave


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## chef2sail (Nov 27, 2007)

I am with Jeff. I dont risk cutting across the Swan Creek Bar. Be hung up there a few times and learned my lesson.

Dave


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## Quickstep192 (Jan 6, 2001)

If you want to find out where the depths vary, check this out. It's kinda cool.

NOAA


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## camaraderie (May 22, 2002)

damn...I have to add another bookmark! Nice Quickstep!


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## JohnRPollard (Mar 26, 2007)

SailorMitch said:


> Knapps Narrows was dredged last spring and carried 7-9 feet on my one trip through there last summer.


You must have caught a good tide. Charts show western entrance of Knapps dredged to 7 feet MLW, eastern entrance dredged to 6.5' MLW. Last October we went through near low tide and saw lower readings on the sounder.


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## Jeff_H (Feb 26, 2000)

Even though my prior boat could get through Knapps Narrows pretty easily, I rarely went through Knapps Narrows and usually only in dead air. What I found concluded (even with my prior boat which was significantly slower (45 sec per mile) and shallower (16") than my current boat) is that between dropping sails, slowly gunkholing up the channel, waiting for the bridge to open, and gunkholing slowly out the other side and raising sail again, there is little time advantage to cutting through Knapps Narrows, despite the extra 2 1/2 -3 miles (1/2 hour to 1 hour) that it takes to sail around and you I hate to miss the sailing time. 

But again this illustrates the point that having 7 feet of draft is not the end of the world on the Bay since there are lots of alternatives on the Bay, and a bit more speed can make these options even more viable. 

Now then Kent Narrows is another story all together since its a long sail to circumnavigate Kent Island so I don't plan cruises that requirses me on both the Chester River and the Miles River. My bigger problem with Kent Narrows is air draft rather than depth of water. 

Jeff


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## JohnRPollard (Mar 26, 2007)

Jeff_H said:


> Even though my prior boat could get through Knapps Narrows pretty easily, I rarely went through Knapps Narrows and usually only in dead air. What I found concluded (even with my prior boat which was significantly slower (45 sec per mile) and shallower (16") than my current boat) is that between dropping sails, slowly gunkholing up the channel, waiting for the bridge to open, and gunkholing slowly out the other side and raising sail again, there is little time advantage to cutting through Knapps Narrows, despite the extra 2 1/2 -3 miles (1/2 hour to 1 hour) that it takes to sail around and you I hate to miss the sailing time.
> 
> But again this illustrates the point that having 7 feet of draft is not the end of the world on the Bay since there are lots of alternatives on the Bay, and a bit more speed can make these options even more viable. Jeff


Jeff's point about Knapps Narrows is certainly true -- and I will readily concede there usually is no real time advantage to going through there.

But this point usefully illustrates that different sailors have different priorities. Jeff's perspective certainly stresses the performance side of sailing, so it's understandable that he would consider it just as well to go around the Narrows -- rather than through them. It is a perspective that prioritizes optimal speed and performance above other factors. Nothing wrong with that.

On the other hand, my wife and I choose the Narrows, and not by any stretch to save time. We choose the Narrows so our kids can have the excitement of competing to be the first to sight the draw bridge from the Bay as we approach, of carefully navigating a tight channel under constant (though not overly likely or serious) threat of grounding, of "sneaking past" the cannon emplacements, of seeing the giant crocodiles and turtles on the shoreline, of feeling somehow special as they wave to the shorebound spectators at the restaurants, of signalling the bascule bridge operator for an opening, of learning to balance the current, wind and throttle so the boat "hovers" while we await the bridge, then ghosting under it and fretting whether the mast will "clear" the bridge, of learning that channel markers can switch sides even though you haven't reversed direction, etc etc.

If you do not routinely sail with a boat load of kids, there are many considerations that simply won't occur to you. Kids (and most moms) don't really much care whether the boat is rated 30 seconds per mile faster under PHRF. Family sailing involves a lot of compromises, and many of those are made for sake of comfort and convenience. For our purposes, we prefer a boat with the ability to break-up a passage by visiting or transitting an interesting place, or anchoring in close to shore, and having that special anchorage virtually all to yourself.


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## btrayfors (Aug 25, 2006)

John,

You bring up an excellent point: *one's choice of sailing itinerary and destinations is (or should be) heavily influenced by the crew aboard. * With kids, this will vary considerably depending on their ages and interests. With friends, it will vary by their sailing experience and interests. With just your partner aboard, your itinerary will likely vary again. With a racing crew and a windy day, you'll make different choices. And, if there's just you to please, you may choose an entirely different set of goals.

In each case, the boat's the same. But the itinerary is different as a function of the crew. And, of course, one needs to be mindful of the weather.

Nice thing about the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries: there's something for everyone, i.e., lots and lots of choices available....even for those with deep-draft vessels!

Bill


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## JohnRPollard (Mar 26, 2007)

Bill,

Definitely. In my previous post I just wanted to emphasize the fact that this thread was posited by a guy who will (at least initially) primarily be using the boat for family sailing on Chesapeake Bay.

One point omitted from this discussion is that the boat in question also has an early-90s vintage in mast furling mainsail system. I would suggest that a shallower draft boat with a better mainsail arrangement will likely perform overall every bit as well as this one, and open up some additional destination options that the "constrained by draft" vessel cannot get to.

If we had a better idea of Gillhead's price range, collectively we might suggest some alternative designs -- if for no other reason than a sanity check.


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## btrayfors (Aug 25, 2006)

John,

Yes, absolutely agree on all points.

Sorry, I forgot about the in-mast furling point. That, for me, IS a show stopper on any boat under about 50-60' (they seem to work a bit better on the larger boats, but IMHO are a disaster waiting to happen on smaller ones!).

Bill


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