Practical Boat Owner - June 2018

is a great advantage when testing a boat’s
refurbished systems for the first time.
We decided to go ashore for dinner, so I
attached our new Tohatsu 4-stroke
outboard to the dinghy. This had been
sitting in my garage for eight months and
obstinately refused to start, even after I
changed the fuel. We had a barbecue on
the boat instead, and no snake this time.
We set off early the next day, with the
wind once more on the nose, but now
blowing 15 knots. The Intracoastal
Waterway is marked with numbered posts,
intermittently spaced depending upon the
narrowness of the dredged channel. In
places the water is half a mile wide,
between the outer banks and the
mainland, but the actual dredged channel
might be only 60ft (18m) wide.
I missed a marker on a narrow curve
and ran aground for the first time – but not
the last. Fortunately the ground is
predominantly soft mud, so after some
heavy revs on our good old ‘Perky’
Perkins 4-236, Britannia slid slowly off the
bank and we motored on.

There are certainly some fancy houses

on sections of these waterways, some

with their own sandy beach and

deckchairs. Paul spotted one flying an

Aussie’ flag and wanted to stop and say,

‘G’day mate’... until he noticed two big,

black Rottweilers patrolling the beach and

eyeing us hungrily.

There are, of course, many bridges

spanning the waterway, leading to world

famous towns on the outer banks with

pristine Atlantic beaches: Daytona Beach,

West Palm Beach and Miami Beach to

name but a few.

The fixed bridges have clearances not

less than 19m (62ft). Britannia’s main mast

is 17.68m (58ft) above the waterline. The

older bridges open vertically, sometimes

at fixed intervals, or when you radio the

bridge attendant as you approach. It’s

quite a superior feeling to see the traffic

halted and a great big bridge open on

your request.

Another grounding

We motored 33NM south, into the

constant wind, to the City of Vero Beach

Municipal Marina, where I planned to take

on fuel. The narrow entrance is down the

side of a highway bridge that crosses the

waterway. I slowly turned on the entrance

marker into the channel and caught the

wind hard on the beam, laying us onto an

unmarked bank. This time no amount of

engine power would move Britannia

because she actually needed to go

sideways, against the wind. I hailed a

passing tiny pontoon boat and asked if

they might “take my kedge out?” I knew

there was no chance of that when they

replied, “What’s a kedge?”

I had no alternative but to lower the

dinghy from the davits and try to start the

outboard. Nothing. I hand-walked to the

bow where our smaller anchor, a 16kg

(35lb) CQR, was lowered into the dinghy

with a good coil of line. After a strenuous

row into the wind, muttering unprintables

at the outboard, I heaved the anchor over

the side and drifted back, exhausted.

Some houses on the ICW are

magnificent. You can look, but

you must not land

I had little doubt our new Maxwell

windlass would haul the bow against the

wind, but only if the anchor held. As the

winch ground away and the line drew

bar-tight the bow slowly started to come

off the shoal. Then something bizarre

happened: the anchor suddenly reared

out of the water like a leaping dolphin and

the bow fell back on the shoal. “That’s the

end of that,” I thought, but remarkably the

anchor rebedded itself and we finally

hauled the head off sufficiently to be able

to motor into the deeper channel.

By this time it was pitch black and I had

no idea of the marina layout. I headed for

the first wharf we came to, which luckily

happened to be the fuel quay. As we

closed on the wharf Paul handed the bow

line to a willing hand on the dock – who

Atlantic

Ocean

Lake

Okeechobee

Intracoastal Waterway

FLORIDA

USA

Daytona N

Beach

Kennedy

Space Station

Merritt

Island

Melbourne

Orlando

Vero

Beach

Stuart

Hobe

Sound

West Palm Beach

North Palm

Beach

Lake Worth

kilometres

050

SHAKEN, NOT STIRRED

Britannia’s passage and stopovers on the

Intracoastal Waterway