What Happened to Cortes Bank

[afoaf]

As a guy who crewed on sailboats decades ago on long passages, a place like Cortes bank scares the fook out of me. When i was crewing we had loran-if you were on a good boat,- but mostly relied on compass. And Loran only went so far. Of course, I am in Florida, so Cortes was never my problem, but I have to imagine that many a mariner ran afoul of that reef. Can you imagine being a naive sailor on a 40' sailboat sailing into the bank on a big swell.? OOF.

long distance sailing has always been extremely appealing to me, but I can't get
over this part of the equation.

is it simply a question of having a life raft, PFD, rations/water, and a Garmin InReach?

how do people account for this type of scenario...?

 

[stringcheese]

long distance sailing has always been extremely appealing to me, but I can't get
over this part of the equation.

is it simply a question of having a life raft, PFD, rations/water, and a Garmin InReach?

how do people account for this type of scenario...?

This specific type of brave craziness has probably allowed for humans to expand more easily across the globe. I don't have it but it must be evolutionarily embedded in many people's DNA. You don't get Hawaiian if no one in your ancestry said "fvck it, let's see what happens!"

 

[mundus]

Until not so long ago navigation was done with a compass, watch, and paper chart.

 

[youcantbeserious]

Or in the case of Oceania, stars, following migrating birds, and knowing how to spot the kinds of refraction and cloud formations that indicate islands. Crazy sh!t.

 

[stringcheese]

Leading to the development and use of much mathematics that we still make use of today. People thousands of years ago even, braving the mysterious ocean, armed only with their sense and trust in their understanding that the world is round. Good thing they didn't have youtube to tell them otherwise.

 

[afoaf]

ok, cool, you fkn hippies, I just want to know how lame white dudes do it today

 

[stringcheese]

ok, cool, you fkn hippies, I just want to know how lame white dudes do it today

IPhone app?

 

[mundus]

ok, cool, you fkn hippies, I just want to know how lame white dudes do it today

GPS Plotter and Radar

 

[afoaf]

yeah, probably. like...uber for boats or whatever.

I always build escape hatches in to my backpacking routes...plan for failures
with redundancies and fall back plans, but hitting a reef and sinking 100 miles
off the coast is next level crisis type sh!t

 

[keenfish]

I have stories from my 20's of stealing boats from the harbor and heading out to sea on drunken excursions to the local islands that never made it. Stranded mid channel dead drifting out of fuel in a 14' aluminum skiff and almost being run over by navy boats in the night. Heavy sh!t I kid you not.
It's a miracle that I'm still alive.

 

[_____]

When you approach Cortes there are sea lions, birds, kelp, waves doing different things and going different directions than open ocean (+ a buoy with a bunch of loud sea lions). Accidentally sailing into that zone at night in shittty conditions would be some pretty bad luck (and stupid nowadays). It's not that big and easy to avoid by miles. Why go anywhere near if you're only passing by and have no intention of surfing, fishing or diving?

 

[skooli]

Does it pretty much have to be no wind to be good or will an offshore wind still keep it clean? Thinking how fetch from an offshore wind could create an opposing swell.

During this last run of swell, we had some pretty good wind days. We fly pretty far off-shore and it was glass as far as the eye could see. I imagine conditions for Cortes were perfect.

 

[One-Off]

yeah, probably. like...uber for boats or whatever.

I always build escape hatches in to my backpacking routes...plan for failures
with redundancies and fall back plans, but hitting a reef and sinking 100 miles
off the coast is next level crisis type sh!t

It's on the charts. Now days, you would have GPS and a back up GPS, and probably a back up backup GPS, life raft and Epirb. The thing that scares me about offshore cruising is the price tag.

Clayster is showing his age talking about Loran C. My first (only) boat came with a RDF.

 

[One-Off]

Would hate to be the guy on the right

 

[Sharkbiscuit]

yeah, probably. like...uber for boats or whatever.

I always build escape hatches in to my backpacking routes...plan for failures
with redundancies and fall back plans, but hitting a reef and sinking 100 miles
off the coast is next level crisis type sh!t

Chartplotter + autopilot + radar = white dude circa 2021 program for avoiding it

Dinghy, if you can get it off, life vest + EPIRB, etc. if you hit it.

Specifically sailing, any cruising/bluewater sailboat plebs like us (vs yacht racing teams with Larry Ellison sugaring) would buy, there might even be a chance you could sail straight into it and be okay. Figure the keel/front edge is going to be among the strongest and heaviest parts of the entire vessel, and you're going to be going what, 5-6kts?

You'd do better aboard the Lonely Reefripper the season I decide to sail the Bahamas. We be a goin' Left, laddie.

Will ye serve?

 

[Duffy LaCoronilla]

Why do we not see footage of Cortes Bank anymore? Is it the Greg Long incident? I fly for a living, and operate over the water there quite a bit, and I see waves breaking there all the time. But it seems like the surf world just forgot about it.

it’s still being surfed.

 

[Duffy LaCoronilla]

Isn’t there a video of it being surfed on a small day? Or am I dreaming?

There might be. Fishermen have been surfing it ‘small’ for decades.

 

[Leaverite]

Maybe because it's a 100 miles offshore and only breaks once in a Blue Moon???

Not like you're just going to paddle out there with your GOPRO....

What lies beneath the waves..... Nuclear subs. They have been known to plow into uncharted Sea Mounts. We are still learning the topography of our oceans.

 

[oneworlded]

There was a piece in the Surfer's Journal on him a while back. Written by OneWorldEd I think? Great piece.

yeah - i'll see if I cant dig up a PDF. Really really interesting dude. Passed away just over a year ago.

 

[oneworlded]

Does it pretty much have to be no wind to be good or will an offshore wind still keep it clean? Thinking how fetch from an offshore wind could create an opposing swell.

It seems like when there are Santa Anas, they've dissipated by the time they get that far offshore. But I don't know if anyone's made the trek when it's a full on Avalon--boat-swamping episode. There can definitely be some jumbled conditions out there though. That's another reason it's so rare to get it with just a pure swell. That last smaller day with Greg Long. Holy sh!t was it glassy.