WATCH this video before going offshore - Boating tips & mistakes for beginners on small bay boats.

outboard motors are more reliable than ever therefore small boat owners like myself are venturing further offshore with their single motors today we're going to talk about something we have a lot of experience doing and that's taking a bay boat offshore hey guys welcome back to life by the bow if you're new here i'm clay but if you were to go through some of our fishing videos you will see that we fish out of this boat a lot offshore and a lot of that has to do with just due to the fact that it's just so easy to manage this boat as mentioned these outboards are way more reliable than they ever have been before in the past so we're able to take this boat out on a calm day with a pretty good peace of mind that we're going to be nice and safe out there and we don't have to worry about any motor trouble for the most part we always go out there we have a good day we come back in with little to no trouble obviously not all of us are that experienced when it comes to boating some of you may be watching this video with a lot of experience and you may be able to take away from this and learn a couple things because not everybody knows everything including myself so if you guys want to add something into this video at one point go ahead and write it in the comments section that way we can just kind of create a platform just to keep ideas flowing and help people out but without further ado let's go ahead and jump right into it and just talk about some of the things that you should do as far as preparation kind of x y and z before you do take a bay boat offshore so once you get about 10 15 miles offshore down here in the florida keys you start to completely lose cell phone reception and depending where you're going out of different places in florida different places around the united states or different places around the world your cell phone coverage may vary but that's at least how it is for us down here that's why taking the bay boat offshore becomes a big deal simply just because god forbid you have an issue you can't call anyone for help so the number one thing that we make sure that we always have on this boat before we go out is an e-perp this one's a little smaller a little cheaper than some of them but still works the same way basically you flip this antenna up push the button and that locks into gps coordinate and sends a distress signal to the coast guard so that's definitely something you do want to have it really can save your life another thing i always have in the boat is my spot tracker and basically what a spot tracker is it's a little tiny gps tracking device i hide that in my boat the reason why i hide it is because i actually use it for security purposes in case someone steals my boat basically the way that it works is that little tiny tracker hooks up to an app on my phone communicates via satellite basically i can track exactly where my boat's at god forbid somebody steals it it'll send me a text alert and i can see all the coordinates based on where the boat's been and actually track it in real time to see where it's going and the reason why that's relevant here is because i typically always install that app on someone's phone back home that's close to me just in case god forbid something were to happen they could track me communicate with coast guard and say you know hey this is the last place that you know i was able to track him or say for example this is where he's at right now another thing to have that's very useful is a vhf radio that works via radio waves but that's only good for i believe i'm don't quote me i'm going to research this just to be 100 sure i'm just going to put it up on screen there but um that only works within a certain range but it's definitely still good to have on the boat in order to communicate to boats nearby if you're close enough near shore you can still communicate with land now these next few things may seem pretty obvious to a lot of you but unfortunately not all of us are as educated as we should be and those things simply are an air horn flares life jackets throwables fire extinguishers and a first aid kit i may be forgetting some things if i do i'll go ahead and add that to the video but it is actually the law to have these things on the boat the reason why is the law is because it can save lives it may sound ridiculous but there's been times where i've actually had fires on my boat and it was actually really scary and i'm very glad i had a fire extinguisher when you're on the boat as much as i am you've seen it all just when you think that it can't happen to you it does happen okay so now that you have all your essentials all the things that you should be taking with you i didn't mention food water but that should be a pretty obvious one making sure that your boat has enough fuel you may think okay now it's time to go offshore it's a glass calm day just like this we're ready to go let's go out there let's get after it i gotta tell you i've done that a lot and it always hasn't been as promising out offshore as it is here near shore wind direction is a huge thing here in the upper keys if you get a west wind you can walk out to the ocean and it'll look glass cop and the reason why it looks glass calm is simply just because the chain of islands is protecting you from that wind therefore the water isn't affected by the wind so there's no waves so that can be a huge misconception so you may leave from the dock thinking that you're good to go but once you get out there you may realize that it's pretty dang nasty so you always want to make sure that you're checking your forecast before you go and not just for when you get out there you want to make sure that that forecast is consistent throughout the entire day because it can say that you know there's no rain it's glass calm say at 9 00 a.m 8 a.m whenever you decide to leave but you know after you're fishing out there all day the forecast can change and by 11 o'clock it could be blowing 20 knots so whenever you're checking the forecast to go out you want to make sure that that forecast is consistent throughout the entire day because i've been stuck out in storms in a little boat like this it's scary stuff and you just want to make sure that you always know what's going on weather-wise throughout the entire day rather than just when you decide to leave first thing in the morning now that you've determined the forecast you figured out the wind direction the next thing to start thinking about is current down here in the florida keys we have what's called the gulf stream and the gulf stream actually travels north so say for example you have a north wind that's counteracting against that water trying to flow north with the gulf stream you're obviously going to have bigger waves it may look good here but once you get offshore you start dealing with some current you're gonna start dealing with some bigger waves so another thing to note and this is a huge one and i've figured this out time after time after time the hard way unfortunately and that's simply that the weatherman is not always right trust your gut if you pull up to the boat ramp the weatherman says it's supposed to be slicked out calm and it's simply not that way at the dock don't go like i said he's not always right you should always just use your best judgment and typically for the most part i don't leave the dock if it's not nice at the dock now you may be able to read currents wind directions all that kind of stuff a little better than i can but personally like i said if what i see at the dock doesn't match up with what the weather man's saying i simply don't go you know you may have that buddy that says oh man well the forecast says this and it says that just because the forecast says that doesn't mean that that's always what it is moving along i'm going to talk about loading your boat and this could actually have a huge deal to do with how your boat rides and how it performs basically the way that i set this boat up whenever i'm heading offshore is i like to put all of my weight forward and the reason why i like to put all my weight forward is simply just because that's going to help the boat sit a lot more level the more level your boat sits the easier it's going to be for that entry to cut through the waves entry being the front of the boat it's also going to allow me to stay on plane at slower speeds that way the rear end of the boat's not sagging when it's sitting nice and level it's just going to help to keep that boat pushing through the waves now you may actually figure out that you prefer things to be in the back of the boat that varies from boat to boat this boat on the other hand it handles very well with weight up front whenever i'm offshore but when i'm near shore and i'm cruising around in the back country i always like to put things towards the middle or the back just to gain more speed and fuel economy of course when you put things in the front it's going to slow you down it's going to affect fuel economy but on the other hand it's going to equate to a way softer and better ride and i prefer a better ride over fuel economy because it can get really bumpy in this boat some days last but not least i'm going to talk about sea time and this is huge basically what sea time is is just the amount of time that you're spending driving your boat understanding your boat learning the ins and out how it performs how it handles and the reason why this is so important is just because you do not want to be operating a vessel that you have very little knowledge over controlling so start out small you know start in the bay then start going out towards the ocean then work out towards the reef then finally start getting comfortable to the point where you can go offshore can it be a glass calm day and you can get away with going out there and coming back sure but as mentioned earlier in the video things get nasty things get ugly and you want to know how to drive a boat and most importantly you want to know how to operate yours to the fullest so there's a couple things that i'm going to go through that you guys should know i'm not going to describe every single one of them just because those are all videos within themselves but just to give you guys an idea learn how to work your trim tabs trim tabs have a lot to do with how your boat rides how it performs and these can be something that can be the difference between a dry soft ride and a very wet nasty ride another thing to keep in mind is your route a lot of the times i take a longer route simply just because based on what i calculate my head between depth wind direction currents more than half the time the longer route is typically the softer route say for example this is the angle at which i'm heading offshore to get to my destination this is where i'm at this is land and this is where i'm going rather than taking that angle straight out and having to deal with those heavy seas from here to there what i'll do sometimes is i'll ride the shoreline or get in some shallow water behind a reef and i'll simply take the extra five ten miles going this way just to take off say two three maybe even four or five miles going straight into the waves in a head seat but that's really it guys that's really all i have in mind and all i have to share for today i'm sure there's some things that i'm not thinking of that's the beauty of youtube that's the beauty of having you guys watching because if there's something that i missed i'd greatly appreciate if you guys would put it in the comments below just to kind of help everybody out you know that's what i want these videos to serve as is a platform where people can come for information not only to make their fishing experience better but to also make their boating experience better life by the bow that's what it's all about but i really appreciate you guys watching hopefully you enjoyed this video if you guys like fishing go ahead check out some of our fishing videos obviously check out avail performance gear but yeah that's really it until next time i'll see you guys thanks for watching

Channel: Life By the Bow

Views: 132,074

Rating: 4.9401245 out of 5

Keywords: boating, tips, bay boat, offshore, how to, navigation, beginner, basics, essential, ocean, channel, heavy, rough, seas, fishing, florida keys, shallow, wind, direction, big, waves, small, deep sea

Id: h66xJyBrDKk

Length: 12min 17sec (737 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 01 2020