What is the highest swalls you've sailed thru captain? - Maxum Boat Owners Club

pascavone · 09-05-2011, 02:30 PM

Was wondering what the biggest swalls you've boated thru:

Size of boat: 30'
Wave: 6'-0"" with cute little white caps
Speed: 7 ktns

Bow of the boat was under the top of the wave on the down. Could have broken my teeth on the wind sheild..... was fun...!

http://www.maxumownersclub.com/forum...5&d=1314722532

seapuppy · 09-05-2011, 03:59 PM

we were coming back from Port Townsend a couple of yrs ago and rain into a squal that had me surprised.....my head stands about 8ft above the water line, water was breaking above my head...so..I'm guessing with a 35 ft boat....the swells hit about 14 ft....buried the bow a few times on the troughs ..
max speed during that one was maybe 8mph...

SP

shrew · 09-06-2011, 01:48 PM

Big long 8ft. swells at 30+ seconds. Like driving up-hill, down-hill, uphill, down-hill. We were doing about 22-23kts. No big deal. Also been in 8ft. breaking which were very steep and closely timed. That was a completely different story. Buried the bow a bunch of times on that one. running around 10 kts. Probably should have been going slower. Each time we crested a wave, the high winds (forecast after the fact at peak gusts of 55 mph) was blowing my off of the wave. The boat kept feeling like it wanted to breach sidewaves and get blown back down the face of the wave I just climbed over. I had to zig zag back and forth over each wave to counter the force of wind. Very unsettling.

After that last one, the admiral compares everything to those conditions and says "Eh....this isn't so bad". LOL

jeffmeans · 09-06-2011, 05:54 PM

4-5' swells on CDA Lake (Northern Idaho). NOTHING like you guys describe, I think I burried the bow pulpit once or twice in leading seas... my two boys loved it while they looked out the v-berth windows (closed of course!) as they went under water a few times. Trying to seperate our JetSki when we got to our marina that we were towing at the time was more scary. It would drift under the extended swim platform while I tried to detach the tow line from the bow ring and then slam underneath it (terrible sound). I eventually had to get it seperated from the 90' tow rope I use, and jump in the water to detach the tow rope, climb on board and fire it up to drive it to the wave-break-protected marina. Then the Admiral had to drive Endless Summer in to the public dock at the marina as I couldn't get back on board her obviously (too far to swim). Needless to say we don't moor at that marina anymore!