Great American loop preparation advice

Well, I would disagree with Boris and Chuck - we did not find ANY part of our Loop "boring"! The Illinios, Mississippi, Ohio, Tenn-Tom and Black Warrior were all interesting to us! It was even fun hanging with Loopers in Demopolis waiting out Hurricane Nate!

There are quite a few cool places between Chicago and Mobile, sorry this is such an epistle!

The Village of Hennepin, IL (9/6/17). Free dock, public restrooms, a Post Office, a marine supply store, a grocery store, and three taverns, what more could you want?

Peoria, IL (9/7/17). The mysterious free marina with power and water that does not officially exist, right next to the stern wheeler Spirit of Peoria dock and right below the Riverfront Festival Park with public restrooms and an ice cream shop. This was a fun place to walk around.

Alton , IL (9/11/17). There were some interesting anchorages, notable mainly for being nothing like their Active Captain entries described them, before we reached Alton! Alton is a bona fide city, with a very cool and unique restaurant/bar called Fast Eddie's Bon Air, where we had a fun night with a blog follower there. There is a Walmart in Alton, and Uber, so a good place to reprovision! Another dinner with a blog follower at Tony's. Does any of this sound "boring" or "uninteresting" so far? This is also where we left the Illinois and entered the Mississippi!

Hoppies (should be "Hoppy's" but I can't change Skipper Bob and Active Captain!), Kimswick, MO ((9/14/17). This place is legendary among Loopers, although it apparently barely exists today. It was four rusty barges with a fuel barge and the one-of-a-kind Fern Hopkins. She is probably 80, and holds forth every evening for the Loopers tied up there. We sat around with all the other Loopers while Fern sat right under the "No Smoking" sign next to gas pump lighting one cigarette after another as she gave us her nightly wisdom! Hoppies was done in by a hurricane, not an explosion! At the time, this was the last fuel on the Mississippi for 250 miles. This place, I can say for sure, is neither boring nor uninteresting!

Little River Diversion Channel. Cape Girardeaux, MO (9/15/17). All Loopers go up the Little River Diversion Channel to anchor off the Mississippi, but usually only a short distance, and none past the railroad bridge, maybe a quarter mile or so. We went up all the way to the Interstate bridge, some two or three miles! There was a gas station a short way from our anchorage on an Interstate exit. A kindly gentleman gave me a ride into Cape Girardeax to buy a 5 gallon gas container, and I trudged the short distance to the gas station three times for "insurance" fuel that it turned out we didn't need. It was still an intersting stop all the same!

Paducah Marina, Paducah, KY (9/17/17). We hoped Paducah Marina would be open, but it wasn't, it was still under the contractor's control. But the contractor was not chasing off boats that tied up there and enjoyed the (for the time being) free water and power. We had a nice time here with the other Loopers who also tied up here!

Green Turtle Bay Marina, Grand Rivers, KY (9/18/17). This is a fantastic marina on Lake Barkley with a couple of nice restaurants, and Grand Rivers is an intersting little town! We stayed three days here. Not boring or uninteresting at all! A short distance from Green Turtle Bay, we left Lake Barkley and entered Kentucky Lake through "the cut."

Land Between the Lakes is the area between Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake, many cool anchorages, and a swim in the buff or two!

Pickwick Landing State Park, TN (9/24/17). We had a LOT of cool anchorages on Kentuky Lake after leaving Green Turtle Bay, but Pickwick Landing State Park was major cool. We connected with other Loopers here and enjoyed (suffered?) an evening of playing some mysterious board game aboard the sailing catamaran Angel Louise along with friends Bob and Gail from Bellingham on the trawler Good Times. This state park is a very interesting place with a wonderful campground that we may visit from the land side some time in the future!

Aqua Yacht Harbor, Iuka, MS (9/25/17). Another great marina, right where the route starts down the Tenn-Tom Waterway. We spent two days here, and another boater took us to a pretty good BBQ place. Does this sound like "grinding out the miles"?

Bay Springs Lake, MS (9/27/17). A wonderful lake with many anchorages right after you leave the "Divide Cut" of the Tenn-Tom. A great spot for another swim in the buff!

Wilkins Lock Boat Ramp MS (8/28/17). This boat ramp is on a little pond above the Wilkins Lock. This is a Corps of Engineers facility, and it is gorgeous. It has a big concrete parking lot, trash cans, restrooms and a nice large grassy area. We liked it a lot!

Demopolis, AL (10/2/17). There were some exciting anchorages beween Wilkins Lock and Demopolis, but you can read the blog about those! Demopolis was where we waited out Hurricane Nate for more than a week. They had a loaner car, and there are a lot of historic sites in Demopolis! Hurricane Nate passed over, and it was no big deal, but we had fine time in Demopolis!

Bobby's Fish Camp, Silas, AL (10/10/17). This is kind of like Hoppies, a "must stop" spot, it is the only fuel stop between Demopolis and Mobile! We were tied up here with our friends on the trawler Desperado and a couple of huge yachts. We had a great evening on the dock with our friends, but the best part was that this is only two days from Mobile!

And we are in Mobile! Sorry, not "boring" or "uninteresting" at all!

 
Micah from Sierra

Yes I am reconsidering going to a smaller dinghy and a smaller lighter outboard for it… forget planing, on a 22 boat that planes it does seem an extravagance maybe.

I pretty sure I’ll settle for a 20lbs Rocna vulcan or a 22lbs original.
its two sizes up but I want to sleep well at night and not worry about the boat dragging during day excursions.

thanks again for all the tips and advice.

And yes “everyones needs are unique” and If I didn't take this all with a grain of salt after all these responses to my queries I might be selling the 22, getting onto a 25 and abandoning the great loops altogether!
 
Thanks for the insights Boris from Journey on,

We’re planning to go up though lake Champlain on this trip but I’ve also heard great things about the Erie canal - I could see doing “the triangle loop” I think it’s called some time in the future.

It does sound like anchors are a complicated topic.
I’m still wrapping my head around the amount of Chain and rode I want to carry for the loop - it seems a lot of conversations about this
are specific the the PNW or people who need to drop anchor in hundreds of feet of water to fish…

PS I like you instrument panel mods
 
sebastien said:
It does sound like anchors are a complicated topic.
I’m still wrapping my head around the amount of Chain and rode I want to carry for the loop - it seems a lot of conversations about this
are specific the the PNW or people who need to drop anchor in hundreds of feet of water to fish…[/quot't e]

Yes, perhaps they are. If you really want to make a deep dive into this subject, spend an hour or two searching for and reading anchor threads on trawlerforum. In fact TF would be a good resource for any potential Looper.

IMO, if you are always going to anchor in relatively shallow water- 15' or less you can get by with 25' of chain. Chain does two things: it acts as a weight near the anchor shank and holds it more parallel with the sea floor for better holding and it doesn't get cut up on the rocks.

If you are anchoring in 15' or less, just put out another 30' of scope and that will do more for holding than the chain would. Also 25' of chain is enough to deal with rocks in shallow water.

David
Click to expand...
 
Thank you Pat from Daydream for not only your great tech insights earlier but now on your much appreciated positive spin and fabulous insights about your good times on your journey.


One person’s great adventure can certainly be another’s tedium.
 
Thanks for your further insights about anchoring technique David.

The balance between anchor weight, length (& weight) of chain and scope is pretty intricate and I plan to seek further knowledge about it for sure.

Without risking another flurry of comments about anchoring etc. on the forum (which would not be completely un-welcomed) this is my plan for now:

-get a 20lbs Rocna for peace of mind. (3 sizes bigger)

-ditch the 9lbs delta that came with the boat.

-keep the 15lb delta that also came with the boat as a back up.

-get 30 feet of 1/4 G4 chain.

-get a deck pipe (off to the side for potential future windlass)

-use the 1/2in. braided 100ft of rode that came with the boat for the main anchor for now.

-keep the 1/2in. three-strand rode that came with the boat as a back up.

(the 20lbs delta has 3ft of chain is that too short even for a back up in case I loose the whole main rig?)

Eventually you have to make a decision and live with it!
 
sebastien":2fdhh4gw said:
Eventually you have to make a decision and live with it!
Click to expand...

You don't have to live with your initial decisions all the way around! Even if you make the wrong decision when you start, you can fix it just about anywhere on the Loop.
 
Sebastian, wow, it sound like your plan is progessing really well, you seem to be able to take all our scattered advice and come up with a clear plan that really makes sense for your trip, it is a great start and you will learn as you go as we all did and refine what works best for you.
Boating for me is having a dream about where I want to be and solving every problem and obstacle to get there with the limited resources I have. It took me years to rebuild my old steel cruiser. But we did get down to the sea of Cortez that I had traveled and loved by land years before. We ended up having some magical times. One memory; we were anchored in beautiful little bay, some fellow cruisers anchored across the bay invited us over for drinks and snacks to watch the sunset and as often happens with new friends we talked about life and family far into the night. As we climbed into the dinghy to return to our boat it was a dark night full of stars from horizon to horizon, the sea was calm, so smooth and quiet. Then the magic happened, the bay was full of fosforecence the propeller left a blue-green jet trail extending far astern, we looked down and the multitude of fish we were passing over were zooming across below us creating a streaking light show, jet trails of bright blue and green, a large streak passed below, a seal that then popped up for a breath, we had a small outboard, we were going slowly home across the mile wide bay drinking in the amazing beauty of the night, a forever memory. This is why we go, create memories, absorb all our great would has to offer. I can imagine your loop and all you will experience, it will be great!
 
All very interesting, but...

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes,
but in having new eyes.” ---Marcel Proust

Aye.
 
Ah, good old Marcel, I got so bored in class reading that stuff, so I left, built a boat at 24 and sailed through storms, helped Polynesian villagers rethatch their houses, gave a group of firewalkers a lift back to their home island, met their chief who invited us to anchor in his cove and where some of the little children in a dugout canoe cried in fear at their first look at white people until they saw we were as they. Spending 52 days watching the sun, the moon, rise and set, each different, as our latitude changed with never a sight of land in till landfall was made 6,000 miles of voyage having slipped beneath my keel.

But my voyage, that is how I discovered lands and life's truths I had never learned in class. No one will ever quote what I have learned, as like all great truths it is mine alone.
 
Being reactive and boasting on one's individual accomplishments and
travels is missing the depth of the post.

We all have our own paths. We do what we do and see what we see
all, perhaps, differently than others not realizing, for most, living
our lives is merely an illusion.

I find looking at things below the surface level gives a more intense
satisfying perspective than being concerned with all the surface stuff.
It's taken time to do. Not religious, per se, just a point of view.

Good luck on all that and be all you can be.

Aye.

* Doing nothing is still doing.
 
It is interesting that in telling the tale of finding my truths in life and opening my eyes to the world outside a classroom that I had never seen or imagined existed and encouraging Sebastian on his possibly life changing loop voyage, that you would see me as boasting about what I did and missing the point that I worked for years night and day to build a vessel so I could have new adventures, see the world, spending 52 days at sea, being part of the sun and moons endless voyages across the sky is a way that I entered an almost dreamlike world of inner discovery that I could never have discovered reading a textbook philosopher. Some of my friends back then took acid to see the world differently, some of my friends joined the army went to Vietnam killed people and were shot and nearly killed themselves, ever after they looked at the world through different eyes. Reading the posts that have been written here over the years I would never presume to boast about any of my accomplishments, so many here have done amazing things many of them things I don't have the talent to accomplish. Bob being the first and formost.

R.I. P. my lifelong friend Ranger Capitan Reed Farington awarded the Silver Star, 2 bronze stars and 3 purple hearts you helped me see the world through your eyes.
 
Micah from Sierra you don’t need to apologize for a small typo.
Foggy from W B Nod I really like that sun / rain cover you made (in your album)


We are certainly digressing from the nitty gritty of my inquiries but there certainly are more interesting things to ponder than anchor rode and Rocna vs. Manson for sure.

I never did read proust but the idea that “the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes” seems like a beautiful way of saying that the real destination of any journey (in books, travel, adventure, friendships, relationships, periods of growth and difficulty (life)) ought to be a transformation of ourselves, and expansion of our perspective and an appreciation of our own point of view.
And that seems like the stuff of a life lived.

Oh boy we’re not talking about C-dorys anymore…

So, how about that Deck pipe placement - anyone?
 
If you cut a hole through your foredeck where there is a balsa core, the core must be cut back and filled with epoxy filler to prevent wet core rot. There are a lot of earlier posts on the subject if you need help with how. To prevent the line and chain from stacking up and blocking your deck pipe it is best if it is as far back as practical in your anchor locker space, and as you mentioned enough to the side that you have the option of adding a windless later (on the starboard side if you are right handed). I think using a good hole saw for as much as possible on fiberglass is easier than a jig saw. Always measure above and below twice or more and cut once!
This is all pretty basic, I hope I'm not telling you things you already know.
 
We put in a deck pipe when our Windlass started to act up It was a 400 Horizon from Simpson- Lewers .I then installed a 700 series which plugged almost right in .(needed to drill an extra hole) but otherwise works nice .
But now we have a deck pipe if windlass goes south so we still can access anchor BTW I went with solid chain instead of chain /line . Since we hardly ever anchor out it works for us Jim
 
A couple thoughts about having a windless.

1) I consider them a safety item. Do you really want to go out on the bow in a storm to raise the anchor. I watched one night as a friend had to crawl out on the bow in the middle of a storm to reset the anchor with an all chain rode. Scared me to death.

2)A Lumar 700 Horizontal would work great on your boat. I’ve never seen a vertical windless on a 22

3) I usually use about 7 times more line than the distance measured from the bow to the bottom at night.

4)I do not have a deck pipe on my boat. If the windless broke I can still let the line down through the windless.

Have a great trip👍

Tom
 
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