Smallest boat for Vancouver to Victoria and back on infrequent basis ?

I say go rent a 16' hourston, pick a 15 knot day and rip over to vic and back. May give you an idea of what to get.
 
yeah the boat would survive but the passengers probably wouldnt lol. having dealt with inflatables and ribs - they float ok, the people inside would probably be killed or frozen to death long before the boat would sink - but either way isnt safe.
i get where youre coming from - but for example see this comment from a USCG report on a foam collar boat :
In March 2002 in the Niagara River (USA) two Coast Guard sailors died when their RIB style boat pitch-poled them into a frigid Lake Ontario in very moderate seas. The RIB filled with water and scuttled--it was not sufficiently bouyant. If these unfortunate fellows had been in a Boston Whaler they would probably not have been thrown in the water in the first place, and even in the event they were, they could have returned to a boat with excellent floatation characteristics and perhaps restarted the engines.
another one last year : http://rnli.org/NewsCentre/Pages/Three-rescued-from-capsized-RIB-by-Whitstable-lifeboat-crew.aspx
and another : http://rnli.org/NewsCentre/Pages/Hartlepool-RNLI-called-to-capsized-Rib.aspx
and a 22ft RIB which capsized : http://www.ybw.com/specials/529982/four-men-rescued-after-rib-capsizes

good idea on the rental - will try and find one.
 
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Classic 17' Whaler....

Cheapest option would be a bare hull with a 60hp tiller...Campbell River fishing guide special. Many used to run these back and forth across Queen Charlotte Sound every year without issue. JMHO
 
would a whaler be better than a tinny ? i thought they had the same amount of foam ?

also new design i might copy
2012-10-20-2082.jpg
 
I have a whaler tiller and I would cross the straight, but I wouldn't know if I would commit until I was out past sandheads or point grey by a mile or two. Then I would decide if the forecast was matching what I was seeing and feeling. In other words, I would never be able to commit to any plans because everything would be weather and sea state dependent. I must say I have had a little whaler for years and this one for 2.5 and I am still learning about how the boat handles in various conditions. I don't think it is realistic for anyone to jump in a new to him or her boat, go for a test drive, then start to make sketchy trips without accumulating a good number of shake down hours. NW is often high pressure steady wind; SE can be stormy and nasty and is no good either for a small boat BTW. Both would mean running in the trough, which requires your full attention and would make for a stressful trip in anything over 15 or so knot winds. Beach launch from tsawwassen ferry to active pass is probably the shortest passage to "safer" water. Not sure who would take care of your car.
 
tubber said:
I have a whaler tiller and I would cross the straight, but I wouldn't know if I would commit until I was out past sandheads or point grey by a mile or two. Then I would decide if the forecast was matching what I was seeing and feeling. In other words, I would never be able to commit to any plans because everything would be weather and sea state dependent. I must say I have had a little whaler for years and this one for 2.5 and I am still learning about how the boat handles in various conditions. I don't think it is realistic for anyone to jump in a new to him or her boat, go for a test drive, then start to make sketchy trips without accumulating a good number of shake down hours. NW is often high pressure steady wind; SE can be stormy and nasty and is no good either for a small boat BTW. Both would mean running in the trough, which requires your full attention and would make for a stressful trip in anything over 15 or so knot winds. Beach launch from tsawwassen ferry to active pass is probably the shortest passage to "safer" water. Not sure who would take care of your car.
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how big is your whaler ?
what sort of weather forecast do you look for before heading out ? NW they dont recommend because of the fraser rip tides, SE is supposedly better due to less waves while crossing the fraser as it empties into the strait. i would likely launch from pitt and head down to nanimo straight across then go between the islands down to victoria. longer but safer i think ?
 
16'7" (they call it a 17). I fish out of Ucluelet mostly. I don't use the boat as transportation. If the swells are over 1.5 meters and the wind is over 20, I fish the more protected inside waters. If it is low swell and 10-20 winds or bigger swells with a long period and no wind I fish South Bank (5 miles out). If it is light wind, clear and very low swell, I go to out 20 miles but I always give it a try closer in first.

Your problem will be you won't have other options. You will have committed a fair amount of time and expense to get out of the river, before really knowing whether it is a good day to cross. If you have preplanned engagements on the island or back on the mainland, obligations may lead to making ill-advised crossings.

Your options are a bigger boat (and truck), a mainland boat and an island boat (like me and others), leaving the boat on the island, or crossing only when the weather allows without ever feeling the pressure to be somewhere on a deadline.
 
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Rubber, excellent advice, it's not the weather that is forecast that is the problem, it's the weather that you run into. If it's a one time run, sure go for it, but if Zurk plans to do it occasionally then the odds are something will happen that a 16 footer will not be able to deal with. Why take that chance?
 
i understand that - would not be scheduling any commitments to victoria before the trip - ive turned back from pitt before etc. i dont plan to use it as transportation either. expense is minimal - $3 worth of gas, $10 launch fee is not much. would toodle back to deep cove if the weather at the mouth of the fraser looked bad.
do you look at environment canada forecasts at all ? When they say 5-15 knots do you find the wind to be higher ? 20 knots seems too high to cross to me. also do you look at the mid strait buoy data for swell height or just guesstimate it ? wondering if a 0.6m swell would be considered too much vs 0.3m which is ok ?
 
zurk said:
i understand that - would not be scheduling any commitments to victoria before the trip - ive turned back from pitt before etc. i dont plan to use it as transportation either. expense is minimal - $3 worth of gas, $10 launch fee is not much. would toodle back to deep cove if the weather at the mouth of the fraser looked bad.
do you look at environment canada forecasts at all ? When they say 5-15 knots do you find the wind to be higher ? 20 knots seems too high to cross to me. also do you look at the mid strait buoy data for swell height or just guesstimate it ? wondering if a 0.6m swell would be considered too much vs 0.3m which is ok ?
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Forecast and what is actual happening often not the same. And the wave height is not the most import it's the spacing. Yes I look at the bouy online all the time. Also once the tide changes it can kick up or lay down, I would just get the biggest seaworthy boat you can tow and away you go. Once you get sometime in your new boat on the water in front of Vancouver you will have a good idea what you can and can't do. I don't know If you will be crossing the Fraser bar but that is the place I would be carefully wind against tide and river current can be bad!!
 
I'm no expert, but have been from California to Bristol Bay in a commercial boat, and done a fair amount of sport fishing the last 10 years. The worst conditions I have seen were at the mouth of the Columbia and the middle of the Gulf of Alaska. The mouth of the Fraser on the wrong wind/tide was the third worst I have also fished the mouth of the Fraser in an 11' foot whaler quite few times. It all depends on the weather and in river mouths the tides. I don't know enough about the gulf weather reporting system to comment on it or it's accuracy. I use Environment Canada, Swell watch, Big Wave Dave via cell phone and/or laptop, plus vhf on the west coast. 5-15 can be 0-25. It is a range for a fairly large area. You should develop an understanding of when the whitecaps begin to form, how much longer are you prepared to watch them grow before turning back?
 
what spacing do you look for ? for example it says wave period 3s height 0.5m right now - is that good or bad ?

if i saw whitecaps i would head home - those are scarey.
 
Doesn't take much for the whitecaps to show up in the straight, I agree,in a 17' boston whaler montak I wound consider it, I have been in the straight when the ferry couldn't even dock and smashed sideways into the pilings at Tawassen. it is the unforeseen that will get you in trouble, I was out prawning yesterday and overheard a distress call from a boater near Victoria who had lost power. if you lost power in that 17' tinny and it was blowin 15-20 knots probably wouldn't take long before you started taking water over the transom. Lots of bigger safer boats that you could look at in that price range.. Goodluck don't become a statistic..
 
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jeffywestcoast said:
Doesn't take much for the whitecaps to show up in the straight, I agree,in a 17' boston whaler montak I wound consider it, I have been in the straight when the ferry couldn't even dock and smashed sideways into the pilings at Tawassen. it is the unforeseen that will get you in trouble, I was out prawning yesterday and overheard a distress call from a boater near Victoria who had lost power. if you lost power in that 17' tinny and it was blowin 15-20 knots probably wouldn't take long before started taking water over the transom. Lots of bigger safer boats that you could look at in that price range.. Goodluck don't become a statistic..
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Well said Jeffy. I agree with you and think Zurk is playing it smart by asking all the right questions, but I still think he is trying to steer in a direction he shouldn't be. The rule for engine power is the same rule for boat size. " There is no replacement dor displacement"
 
zurk said:
what spacing do you look for ? for example it says wave period 3s height 0.5m right now - is that good or bad ?

if i saw whitecaps i would head home - those are scarey.
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My general rule of thumb for ocean swells/waves is that I want the period in S to be at least 3-4 more than the height in feet. So for me, 1M (~3ft) swell @6 s is fine but 1M@3s is unpleasant. Similarly 2m @ 10s is OK, 2m@13s is beauty but 2m@7-8s is nasty. However, the main thing with the straits is tide against wind and the predictions of the waves created and the measurement of such is very dependent on where you're at. Tidal current with the wind flattens out the waves, against the wind it steepens them up. IMHO, the best thing one can do is to pay close attention to winds and tides the buoys over a period of time and see what the water actually looks like in the locations of interest under different sets of numbers. Eventually, you learn to correlate those numbers with what you see on the water for a given location. Whitecaps in and of themselves are not that scary, it's the steep waves and washtub motion that occurs at river bars, entrances to straits and in tide rips that can get scary.
 
seadna said:
My general rule of thumb for ocean swells/waves is that I want the period in S to be at least 3-4 more than the height in feet. So for me, 1M (~3ft) swell @6 s is fine but 1M@3s is unpleasant. Similarly 2m @ 10s is OK, 2m@13s is beauty but 2m@7-8s is nasty. However, the main thing with the straits is tide against wind and the predictions of the waves created and the measurement of such is very dependent on where you're at. Tidal current with the wind flattens out the waves, against the wind it steepens them up. IMHO, the best thing one can do is to pay close attention to winds and tides the buoys over a period of time and see what the water actually looks like in the locations of interest under different sets of numbers. Eventually, you learn to correlate those numbers with what you see on the water for a given location. Whitecaps in and of themselves are not that scary, it's the steep waves and washtub motion that occurs at river bars, entrances to straits and in tide rips that can get scary.
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ok that makes sense. right now its a wind warning so 1.64ft at 3s - 1.64+4 = 5.64s to be comfortable. so not worth going out.

of these routes which would be the safest for entering/exiting the strait in order of difficulty :
1. wreck beach/ ubc up north from YVR
2. next to river road / YVR / swishwash island
3. steveston harbor next to shady island
4. westham island / river road north from the the ferry terminal

also would it be better to :
1. cut across to nanaimo and go down from there
2. enter between valdez and galiano islands / ladysmith and go down
3. go between galiano and mayne islands (ferry route) and go directly
 
too far. i launch out of pitt lake usually as i know the lake and pitt/fraser rivers well. i know when to run away and where to run away on those rivers/lakes. long river run would also give me more info over 45 mins about the weather and tide conditions than a direct launch into the strait would.
 
You are buying a light boat so it's easy to tow. The river is not the problem it's the bar. The weather and bouy you plan to use for forecast are totally different at the bar.
 
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