Village West to Sacramento, any waterway problems

D

DLL

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It would appear parts are in and we will take the Tolly to Sacramento Saturday. Lot's of traffic I expect.

Anyone heard of a bridge closing or any other problems if we go past Willowberm to the Georgiana Slough to Sacramento River?

I will have the phone numbers for the bridges with me. Any fishing contests, etc.??

The Capn software shows around 60nm for the trip (give or take a couple of miles), so I figured around 9 hours.

Going to fill the tanks at VW around 8:30am Sat, then head out. It will be a slow trip.

Any suggestions?
 
Sorry I have no info for you, but I just wanted to wish you well. Have a safe, uneventful and pleasurable trip!
 
Dave,

I don't know of any closures, but I believe that all of the bridges you will be using are on "Winter Hours" which means that they are only tended between 9:000am and 5:00pm. You will need to open the following bridges and while phone numbers are good, most bridges are hailed on Ch. 9 of the VHF.
Mokelumne Bridge
Tyler Island Bridge
Georgiana Slough Bridge
Walnut Grove Bridge
Paintersville Bridge
Freeport Bridge (Usually has enough clearance to pass without opening)

The trip from Willow Berm to Sacramento is about 5 hrs traveling at 11-13 knots, so I'd plan on being at the Mokelumne Bridge at 9:00am. You'll be fighting the tide as you go up the Georgianna, but once you get on the Sacramento, the tide should be in your favor and you should be able to clear all of the bridges before 5:00pm.

It should be a great trip and I'm sure you'll enjoy boating on the Delta again. Post a trip report when you get back home.
 
Thanks Dave, I have called three of those bridges to confirm they will be there to open the bridges on a Saturday. All said to just call them on Ch 9.

We will top off the tanks around 8:30, then head out. Lots of 5mph zones to go through.
I figured about 9 hours max time. It is about 15 miles to WB, I figured about 1+20 or so for that. IF we clear Stockton close to 9am we should arrive at the first bridge around
10:30 or so.

A little over an hour for the Georgianna Slough, then hit the Sacramento River north for about 30 miles.

The radar is inop, will have to send it back to Raymarine, full of water I was told.
BUT without radar, I sure want to be "home" by dark. Hopefully all will go well and we will arrive around 5-6pm.
 
6 hours 15 minutes travel time. Several large trees in the water just south of Sherwood Marina, otherwise very little "trash" on the trip.

While taking on fuel in Stockton we had a large ship go by (Deep Water Channel next to us),
the surprise was when the water started rushing out of the marina. It lowered the water level over a foot (based on the water line at the dock) and the water actually RAN swiftly towards the ship. It was not moving very fast (or did not appear to be).

Good trip. Our two sea lions were waiting for us on the dock. The Harbormaster said they had been gone for a long time and returned yesterday, just before we arrived. Go figure.
Our dog, Tolly, has a truce with them ... they mutually ignore each other.

Time for some maint. work on the boat. We have all summer.
 
Interesting. I keep my boat at Village West and have never noticed the water acting like that. How did you know a ship was going by? Could you see it from the fuel dock?

There was a good sized tree in the water at the 90 degree bend you go around on 14 Mile Slough after leaving the marina in the afternoon. There was a LOT less stuff in the water than when I was out 3-4 weeks ago though.
 
When I took my first CG Aux safe boating class, I remember them saying to give tugs and commercial vessels a very wide berth because they are pushing so much water. I remember one time I [foolishly] anchored on a sandy spit along the shipping channel. A tug went by; first the water went out about 20 feet, leaving my boat high out of the water. Then the water returned and our entire site, BBQ and all, became drenched as did the people on the "beach". Needless to say, that was the end of that BBQ party!
 
etyppo,
We fueled up at River Point Landing for a couple of reasons. I was going to go down the day before, drive over to VW, fill the tanks, leave the boat there overnight. But my wife said she wasn't sure where VW is located. I made up a map. She is a wonderful lady, but she gets lost, even with a map, sometimes. Then I said I would drive over there, fill up, drive back to Ladds. THEN I figured the fuel it would take to drive over to VW and back, computed buying roughly 100 gallons and it was cheaper (with the 10% discount) to fuel up at River Point Landing, and much faster. So we were at RPL when the ship went by.

We tried getting a slip at VW, but no luck. Even an end tie would have been fine. No such luck. We are still on the list. With it in Sacramento we can do some of the repairs ourselves. The carpet is badly stained from the rain (?) coming in, mid ship AC unit is now popping the CB after it runs about a minute, need to replace some batteries, need to replace the loud speaker for the hailer, and so on.

There are probably another half dozen things I need to see about, but with it here in town we can run over for a couple of hours and come home easily if we get tired or some misc. body part malfunctions.

Plus we always have our sea lions to talk to. I think we will have to name them. One is missing a "canine" tooth.

As for the ships sucking the water out of our area, I had heard of that before, just forgot it. A friend of mine told me about fishing in the Deep Water Channel that comes up to Sacramento (years ago)...he said when the ships went by they sucked water away and then sent it back. He said they would grab their stuff and retreat up the bank until they felt safe.

As for junk in the river, it was real clean until we got south of Sherwood Marina, then it was pretty bad. A couple of the large trees were not moving, leading me to think one end might be on bottom. Oh well, we made it.
 
Flutter - I went by (on the other side of the channel) a tug pushing a ship against the dock at the Port of Stockton a few years ago. It probably moved my boat 8-10' sideways as I went through the propwash from the tug that was perpendicular to my direction of travel. Some serious thrust at work there. I'm always amazed at how little wake the ships make going down the channel when they are obviously moving a huge amount of water, judging by the wave action on the levees as they go by.

DLL - ok, I misunderstood. It would be easy to see a ship from Riverpointe, and I have seen the water go in and out there as a ship goes by. I'm surprised you had trouble getting a slip at Village West. Lots of empty 30'ish ones near me, although the bigger ones may be in short supply. VW is considerably cheaper for fuel, but after roundtripping it to there from Riverpointe and getting a fuel discount, it probably didn't make much sense to go there for fuel. VW is actually about as cheap as the gas stations right now for 91. I got some Saturday at 3.24 or .25.
 
Dave,

Glad to hear you had a good trip. I hope to see more of you on the Delta this year.
 
I understand how the big ships can push water out but how do they suck water away from the shore?
 
Wife says when the large ship goes by, it pushes water out, leaving a "hole" behind it, thereby pulling adjacent water to fill in the "hole". When the ship has passed, all is equalized again.

I am too sleepy to comment on that statement. It looks good, but someone who is "more on the ball" than I might see a different explanation. I woke up at 3am again. Arrrrgh....
I hate that.

Tugs --- I read somewhere that tugs can have huge props. I know I stayed away from the area directly behind that ship. Not much lift with bubbles.
 
The water running out of a marina or shallow anchorage is caused by the venturi effect created by the ship or tug moving thru the water. The faster it's moving, the bigger the effect. The ship squats, actually drawing more draft, the venturi effect causes the water to rush towards the ship.
The large vessel also has to be careful with 'bank effect' and 'bank suction' - one pushes the ship away from bank and the other actually pulls it closer increasing danger of running aground. You can find more info on Google.
 
When a ship passes, the water level along the banks of a river or canal drops due to the ship's motion causing a pressure drop according to Bernoulli's Principle, and a phenomenon called the Bank Effect. The ship displaces water and creates a faster-moving flow on the bank side, which lowers the pressure and "pulls" water toward the ship, causing the water level to fall. The water level will rise again after the ship has passed and the pressure equalizes.
 
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