Rollin on the River

The area in the box is my travel route

It’s time to move Lesson Plan to KY Lake for Hurricane Season.  I headed down to Mobile today (Wednesday) to start my Rollin on the River adventure. It's 624 miles and 13 locks from Turner Marine in Mobile to KenLake Marina, it should be a great trip.

I made this trip 3 years ago, when I help a fellow sailor move his 50’ sailboat to KY Lake (mast down).  It is the reverse of the route I took with Carol and Frank on Lesson Plan last October (mast down).  It took us 13 days to reach Mobile coming down the rivers.  We had a little issue with the rudder on the way down and probably lost a day or two, due to our slower pace.  I hope to make the trip in 10 to 12 days.

I am making the trip with my mast up, so I have to be able to get under several 50’ bridges, Lesson Plan’s mast height is 46.5’. The unknown is how much the rainfall from Sub-tropical Storm Alberto will affect the river levels. Those of you who live close to a river understand how a few inches of rain up north can cause the river to rise a few feet in a short period of time.

Bridge Clearance Gauge

Bridge clearance on the ICW is pretty straightforward. It is given as the height from the Mean High Water (MHW), the average high tide. Most bridges have clearance gauges on them, most of them.

For the bridge clearance on the rivers, you have to really pay attention to the footnotes on the page you are reading. The official bridge height on rivers is given as altitude. But, you can also easily find bridge heights listed as height above normal pool and sometimes at the first flood stage.  The clearance is supposed to be shown as the lowest point over the channel. So, if a bridge arches, there should be more clearance than what the gauge or chart data shows. But then some signs state “Clearance at Center”. The USCG sent out information recently that all bridges are measured to “low steel” and if any signs say, “clearance at center”, they are incorrectly posted. The sign is incorrect or the height? Or both? And that is for the ones that have a gauge, I noticed on the trip down, that at least a third of the bridges did not have readable signs or they were missing all together.

This one shows about 47' clearance. Proceed very slowly.

I have developed a chart that indicates the safe river level for 48’ clearance for each section of the river (with each lock you pass through the river level changes). I integrated these levels into the RiverGauge app I have on my phone. So, I'm all set (anxious emoji).

Needless to say, this first time up the river with my mast up, will be a somewhat nerve-racking journey. Bridges to watch out for, locks to navigate, and most nights will be at anchor (on the edge of the channel in the river, which may require two anchors, one in the back and one in the front to keep the boat from swinging into the channel).

I hope to create some time-lapse videos of my journey to share. We’ll see how that works out. It seems I often forget to start the camera, and when I am solo don't like to go to the bow while I am moving, Maybe I could post a sign on the helm station. Wish me luck.