Tall Masts, Low Bridges, on the Okeechobee Intercoastal Waterway

Okeechobee Waterway

Making a passage through the Okeechobee Intercoastal waterway with a sailboat is a very interesting and challenging voyage.   The long duration and beauty of back country of Florida is relaxing as well.

See this link for map of the Waterway:
http://w3.saj.usace.army.mil/h2o/cameras.htm

The St. Lucie Lock on the Okeechobee Waterway

The first thing you want to look at as a sailor is what are the heights of the bridges.  With some 26 bridges to pass under, you certainly do not want to hang your mast on the bottom of a bridge.  People have, indeed, made errors on this matter.  Not knowing your mast height can be troublesome!

One lady, manning the helm (lady-ing the helm?);  going under a bridge, accidently hit it;  -and the boat mast hung up in the bridge.

 The boat turned sideways under the bridge, the strong current pulled it under the bridge sideways, and

the boat heeled over 50 degrees.  Unfortunately the boat filled with water due to the port windows not being closed prior to going through the bridge.  She panicked,  grabbed a life vest, and jumped off

of her boat into a two knot current on a rising tide, which swiftly took her down stream away from the bridge and the boat.  

With her boat getting hung up under the bridge, the mast can withstand so much pressure.

It snapped in two and the boat started floating with the current from under the bridge.  She could not swim back to the boat, but, fortunately, a jetski came up beside her, heaved her onto the back seat and took her to her half-sunken  demasted boat.

So, I measured my mast just to be sure.  Twice!  Once from the bottom up.  And then I climbed to the top of the mast and measured from the top down. I have never been accused of not being anal enough!    :)

The lowest fixed bridge on the Okeechobee intercoastal waterway is:  49 feet, 3 inches.  The RR bridge at Mayaca lock used to open up to 52 feet.  But now, it is so old, it sticks at 49 feet, 3 inches to 50 feet, 6 inches depending on rainfall.  For some reason or other, it has not been fixed.

There are about 10 bridges that are swing bridges or bascule bridges, which open completely for passage.  So, there is no worry there.  You just radio the bridge master on channel 9 and they open on-demand most of the time.

If your mast is higher than 49 feet, it does not mean that you may not get through.  There are a number of options.  You can swing out your boom  90 degrees, and put about 400 lbs on a block and tackle tied to the boom's end, (like a fiberglass dinghy and motor). to tilt the mast enough to get under it, but that is a precarious exercise, and should be practiced before doing it the first time.  You certainly do not want oncoming traffic with the boom sticking out to the side 25 feet into the oncoming boat's path.  You could lose the dinghy and the boat, and get a lawsuit.

I understand that there is a company that will come and load one side (starboard) or the other side (port) of the boat with drums full of water, in order to tilt the boat enough, so that it will heel 15 degrees to safely pass under the bridge with a 54 or 55 foot mast,  if you took our 10th grade geometry class, it  would be a handy class to remember at this point.

Since my mast measured 6 feet from the water level at midship to the bottom of the mast, then 10 feet up to a scratch on the mast, and then 25 feet more above the scratch to the masthead where the 25 foot tape measure got stuck to the halyard pulley at the masthead,  I add up the 6+12+25+3= 46.  I need to add about three more feet for the radio antenna, and lighting deflector array.  Whether the lightning deflector really works or not is for the physics professors

to debate.

Masthead Array

So, a 46 foot height at the highest point leaves me with a 3 foot  3 inch clearance.   Wow, that seems like  a lot!  But, distance is deceiving when looking up at a 46 ft mast and going under a 65 foot bridge.  It looks like

I only have about 5 feet of clearance from my vantage point (with a 46 foot mast) from behind the helm looking up through the strato glass of the bimini.

Knowing that I am only going to have only three feet of clearance gives me a little anxiety still.   The anchor light on top cost $500, the wind direction and wind speed indicator cost $1500, and then, the mast itself with rigging, and 

stainless steel cables (shrouds), turnbuckles, and chainplates,  is more than I want to think about repairing.   So, it behooves the captain to know his boat's vertical dimensions.

After climbing to the top of the mast, tonight, and loosening the spinnaker halyard, and taking my tape measure, I determined that, my height was exactly 47.5 feet.

And,  according to the new website I found at www.southwindsmagazine.com, I found that the bridge height is now 50 feet and 3 inches with the added rainfall.   Wow, at least two feet of clearance!  Now, I KNOW for certain that I can breathe easier, going under the Mayaca Bridge.

Three Bridges at once at Stuart, FL. on the St Lucie River

I am good to go.

So much for mast heights! Its time to get to bed and continue the journey at 0630!