The Great Loop - The Basics

just what is the greatest Adventure you can have in North America On A Boat RV people will drive to the desert to go see the Grand Canyon maybe do Yellowstone the West Coast airplane people will fly into LAX or JFK maybe Miami and then onto the tropics but boat people when they want a year-long trek to see most of the US and a bunch of Canada on an epic adventure worth thousands of pictures hundreds of new friends and the experience of a lifetime they do the Great [Music] Loop don't think that the Great Loop is limited to people with trollers or powerboats sailboats can come and play too the northern section of the loop on the Great Lakes is excellent for sailing as is the east coast of the US out in the Atlantic some of the best sailing I've ever done was off the coast of Georgia and the Carolinas yes we have to drop our mass for the canals and the locks but you'll find facilities in place to help you do that I've done it and it really isn't that hard plus an argument can be made that to do the Great Loop you might be more comfortable on a sailboat anyway traversing the great lakes or the Gulf with the sails up can be a much better experience than rolling around on a tler and my Keel depth of 5'5 never really got in the way the NOAA website says the Great Loop is a continuous waterway that recreational Mariners can travel that includes part of the Atlantic Gulf inter Coastal waterways the Great Lakes Canadian Heritage canals and the Inland rivers of America's Heartland anyone who completes the journey is then named an official Looper America's Great Loop Cruisers Association says Loopers Cruise the 6,000m Great Loop route aboard their own boats completing a circumnavigation of the eastern US and part of Canada via mostly protected inland waterways the Great Loop route follows the Atlantic inter Coastal Waterway the Chesapeake Bay and the New York canals northward goes across the Great Lakes south on the Inland rivers and then East Gulf Coast to complete the loop I'll leave links to those resources in the description because the NOAA and aglca will be definitive places for information if you want to go and do this thing and if you're anything like me after this video you'll want to there's a great video on the Great Loop YouTube channel by Kim Russo a link to as well where she walks Cruisers through the process in the video she says one of the biggest questions the aglca America's Great Loop Cruisers Association gets is how hard is it how technical to complete the loop Kim answers it's not a very technically challenging trip it's not an ocean Crossing where you're out in the middle of the ocean without access to services and the boat skills you'll need are easy to obtain you can take safe boating courses and get just about everything you'll need from local power squadrons or the Coast Guard classes there are a couple of different routes to the loop you can do it entirely in the US if you want to though you'll miss some of the highlights if you do that if you do the whole thing you'll see 15 different states in Canadian provinces and make landfall in two different countries Canada and the US some Loopers sidebar over to the Bahamas too that's an option on the shortest route you'll cover 5,250 Mi or you can Sidetrack from time to time and do 7,000 or even 10,000 miles you'll go through 100 plus and all this is usually done in a year's time but the loop has been done as quickly as 2 and 1/2 months while some Cruisers will spend years on this journey sort of taking it all in part of the beauty of the trip is that it's entirely up to you there is a beaten path and a fairly set schedule if you just want to go with the flow and I mean that literally timing is usually set by seasonal weather in the north hurricane season in the south and lock schedules on the canals you'll want to be around the great lakes in the summer and then toward Florida in the winter the NOAA explains if you start in Chicago continue South in a counterclockwise direction to take advantage of the river currents that run into the Mississippi River while a few people stay on the Mississippi all the way to the Gulf of Mexico most Loopers choose to exit at the Tennessee River to avoid heavy barge traffic on the larger Waterway this path leads to the Tennessee Tong Big B Waterway which also flows to the gulf regardless of the southern route selected boers can float Downstream to the warm Waters of the gulf and explore the Florida garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary from there Cruise East on the gulf's inter Coastal Waterway while soaking up some Florida Sun visit the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary then travel North up the inter Coastal Waterway and discover the Graze Reef National Marine Sanctuary continue North on the intra Coastal to New York City from the Big Apple it's a straight shot up the Hudson to the Eerie Canal then head west across to the Great Lakes boers may visit Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary when sailing up Lake hiron and then finally returning back to Chicago a tip here ask your boat insurance company about doing the Great Loop some insurance companies have stipulations on how far south you can go and when often you are required to wait until November before heading too far south in the US to avoid hurricane season for this reason a lot of Loopers end up waiting somewhere in Alabama until they're allowed further south I'll leave a link to this interactive Google Map by Captain John in the description Kim from the Alca goes on to say if you're starting from Charleston South Carolina for example you would start in the springtime and head north the loop is generally done counter clockwise so you can take advantage of the currents in the river system it has been done in a clockwise Direction but it does take more fuel and more time to Buck the currents the aglca are seeing more and more people doing the Great Loop in segments meaning that they boat for a few weeks or maybe a few months whatever their time frame allows and then they leave the boat to return home and take care of business family needs whatever that might be so people are looping just in the Summers some people are looping for a few weeks and then going home for a few months it's really up to you one of the advantages of doing it in segments is that you have plenty of time to plan the next segment while you're returning home and you're also not locked into hitting some of these rule of thumb time markers for example you could spend an entire summer on the Chesapeake Bay and not see all of the nooks and crannies that are there so if you're looping in segments you've got the advantage of being able to spend the whole summer in a specific area if you're doing the all at once trip you need to be all the way through Canada during the summer months and really can't spend a lot of time on the Chesapeake Bay because you need to keep moving so you can get through the great lakes and through Chicago before the cold weather hits we just stress that you really need to make it your own trip and do it in a way that speaks to you Practical Sailor is a new channel and we hope you like what you find here please take a minute to subscribe to this video and give it a thumbs up and leave a comment we've got an office bet going here if we get a th000 comments on this video my boss said he'll do the Great Loop in his amphibious car and likely the biggest question anyone has which boat do I use Kim says a lot of Loopers will start in Florida there's a trend to buy the boat in Florida do the loop and then sell the boat back in Florida again so for us ambitious future Loopers Florida might be the easiest place to find the boat a boat that may have already done the loop and already been outfitted thusly and four boats there are Endless Options conventional wisdom of yesterday year was to buy the smallest boat you and your company would feel comfortable on smaller means less fuel easier to dock less to go wrong but in more recent years people have been leaning further into comfort and amenities though some hard restrictions do apply the loop has been done in everything from a kayak to a 70t yacht including a lot of sailboats stepping and uning the Mast as needed the aglca says the lowest unavoidable fixed bridge on the Great Loop is currently charted at 19.6 FT and is located at Mile 300 on the Illinois River the boat you intend to use for the loop must be able to clear that bridge so sailboats the mass comes down some members with taller boats are able to get under the 19.6 Ft bridge by lowering antenna radar arches things like that about 8% of member boats are sailboats and Kim says most sailboats will need to step and unep the mass to clear bridges in Chicago and of course Upstate New York on the canals your choice of waterways through New York State and IND Canada will also be dependent on your air draft if you can clear a 15t bridge you have the option to take the historic Eerie Canal to its Western Terminus in Lake Yuri if you can clear a 17t bridge you can do the triangle Loop that takes you into Lake Champlain and through the St Lawrence Seaway into Lake Ontario as an additional option on the triangle Loop if you can clear the many 8ft bridges you can take the historic Charming free Leen canal through Montreal rather than the Seaway logs the final option is to take the Erie Canal to the oo Canal to Lake Ontario that route requires you to Cle clear 21t Bridges your aird draft will also dictate which route you take off Lake Michigan to cruise the Chicago River through downtown you must be able to clear a 17t bridge if you can't clear that you'll have to take the Cal sag Canal which is south of Chicago to the Illinois River on water draft they say it's recommended that your boat for the Great Loop not have a depth much greater than 5 ft the Canadian canals are maintained at a depth of 6 ft but you are required to contact them and sign a waiver if you draw over five you'll also have trouble during low tide on some areas of the Atlantic intra Coastal Waterway if you draw more than five I've done that in 5 foot five and I was okay and there may be other areas that are difficult to navigate with a draft much deeper than 5 ft that said many boats with greater than five have successfully completed the loop on length there's no particular restriction for doing the Great Loop on the length of the boat of course the larger the boat the more costly it is to tie up at marinas they charge by the foot and the more difficult it becomes to get in and out of some of the shallower or skinnier waters on the Great Loop in reality however water draft and air draft will become a problem long before length the Trent sever does have a maximum length of 84 ft but if you exceed that there are alternate routs it's hard to imagine a pleasure boat that is too beamy for the Great Loop the only areas where maximum beam comes into play are in the locks most of the locks in the US were built for commercial traffic so pleasurecraft have no size challenges in those locks the smallest width for a lock we know of is in Port sever on the Trent SN waterway at a width of 23 ft if your boat beam exceeds that there are alternative routes that don't require you to cruise the Trent s on fuel the furthest distance without a fuel stop along the Great Loop is a route between hoppies in kimswick Missouri and the Upper Mississippi river in Paka Kentucky this is a distance of about 200 miles some Loopers whose boats don't have the necessary range carry additional fuel cans and drums or bladders on the deck for that section of the road on boats it's usually helpful to look at which boats are actually being used by other people according to the Great Loop channel in the aglca while people do the Great Loop on sailboats quite often the number one boat in 2023 to complete the loop was a mainship tler these are Uber popular and the price point makes them relatively accessible but also because they're so popular they come with their own exit strategy after you complete the loop a main ship is easy to sell as someone who has done about half of the Great Loop myself twice both times on a sailboat I can say with certainty that it's worth doing in Upstate New York you you get so much small town America the historic Eerie Canal is fascinating the locks are a lot of fun down the East Coast you see Manhattan Sandy Hook Kate May Annapolis norol the Carolinas Savannah St Augustine the scenery is amazing then you'll meet people you'll never forget and have the experience of a lifetime the best advice I can give you other than take your time and enjoy the ride is go do it make a plan set a date buy a boat and do it you won't regret it but you will regret not doing [Music] it

Channel: Practical Sailor

Views: 74,905

Keywords: sailboat review, sailboats, sailing, practical sailor, tim labute, lady k sailing, sailing yachts, sailboat specs, sailboat tour, boat tour, the great loop, mast stepping, sailboat great loop

Id: D9Xjm4yY9f8

Length: 14min 15sec (855 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 15 2024