The evil Mouth

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The evil Mouth

Post by pat »

Pretty much anyone local who has kayaked for any stretch of time knows for a fact that the mouth of the North/South rivers is a hellish place where only an utter moron would venture and subsequently have to be rescued by the Coast Guard or be killed.

Thing is, every time I'm in a position to look at it, from 4th cliff or the spit, it just doesn't look all that dangerous.

Can someone with first hand experience tell me what is so dangerous about it?

I'm not at all advocating that it's NOT dangerous, or that the unprepared head on out there. I'd just like to know what causes all these problems.
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Post by getnoutside »

One of my sisters best friends in high school lost her father, neighbor, and almost her brother at the mouth. They were coming in from fishing on a powerboat when the boat capsized. Unfortunately, we don't know much about the conditions that caused the capsize because her brother was asleep in the cabin at the time and he's the only one who survived.

My understanding is that the conditions are at their worse when there are tall ocean waves coming into the mouth and there is a strong westerly breeze creating waves that are trying to get out of the mouth.
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Post by Todd »

Pat,

I looked on the Web for some definitive answer, but couldn't find one. All of my knowlege of the place is anecdotal, stories from friends who worked as Assitant Harbor Masters. They have rescued many large and small craft from the confluence of the mouth.

I would imagine that having 3 sources of water, the Atlantic and the North/South Rivers, varying wind directions, varying sea floor materials and inclinations, man made and artifical channels, all would introduce enough variables that at any given moment they could add up to trouble.

I think that a call to the Scituate Harbormaster would give the best answer.
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Post by pat »

I don't have any doubt that it <i>is</i> dangerous, but as webmaster of a site devoted to paddling, I thought I should have an answer a little more definative than "I dunno why. It just <i>is</i>."
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Post by Birdseye »

Unfortunately, we don't know much about the conditions that caused the capsize because her brother was asleep in the cabin at the time and he's the only one who survived.


So basically what you're saying is that if we intend to paddle through the mouth we should cosume vast quantities of L-Tryptophan :lol: .


Sorry, I couldn't help myself.
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Post by Todd »

Just another anecdote I found from some blog. Sorry Pat, I can't help you understand why, it would probably take an oceanlogist

Hello group:

I'd like to share a two part experience that happened Friday
afternoon. I left Scituate MA harbor at about 1 pm in my little
17', 70 hp whaler type boat and took a ride down to, and then
up the North river in Marshfield. For those of you not familiar
with the North river, it has a reputation for sometimes having a
very rough passage at its mouth due to the way the bottom affects
swells and wave action. Anyway, Friday was clear and sunny and the ocean
had light chop with gentle, 2 foot rolling swells.
No problem - yet.


After about a hour I decided to head back to the mouth and then
back to Scituate. As I was navigating the narrow channel at the mouth,
I noticed things had changed. The swells in the mouth were bigger, the
channel was rough and fog was developing. There was a strong current as
the tide was starting to come back in and I was now committed to at
least exiting the river. Watching the rollers, I suddenly noticed that
the whole horizon seemed to be rising and realized that it was a
10 - 12 foot roller heading in like a freight train. When it was about
30 yards from my bow it started to break. The book "The Perfect Storm"
ran through my mind and I grabbed the center console bar with one
hand and the steering wheel with the other.

The boat went near vertical when the breaker hit and I remember the
engine racing as the prop left the water. Crashing down the other
side, my forehead crashed on the stainless steel center console bar
and I then fell back and onto my knees on the bottom of the boat.
(I still have a very sore lump on my forehead). In retrospect, I
realize how lucky I was. If I had been going any slower, the boat
would have been swamped over the bow, any faster and I probably
would have been thrown out. I climbed back to my feet, thanked
the Lord, and headed north to Scituate. This started the scariest
part of this innocent little afternoon cruise and is described in
part two of this post.

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Conditions at the mouths of the North & South Rivers

Post by chpaton »

Pat:

There is no easy way to explain why the area regularly gets treacherous and dangerous. At lot of different things have to be factored in, Steve has already mentioned several, I'll try to fill in some more for you:

Sea state at the mouth - wave height, wave direction, distance between wave crests, are the waves breaking or not.

Wind direction and strength.

Tide state: Tide coming in or going out? Where in the tide cycle are you? approaching ebb, approaching flood, high, low, etc? Are the tides higher and/or lower than normal (e.g. close to a full or new moon)

Current speed and direction.

Storm surges.

How all of the above relate to one another, and

the bottom contour over which all the moving water is passing (this is a major unpredicable variable in places were the bottom is sandy).

A possible worst case sceanario: large steep breaking waves with little space between comming ashore. Wind at 25+ blowing at an angle to the wave and current directon. Tide has just turned and starting to rise at the mouth but a fast current is still flowing out of the river over a bumpy irregular bottom

A lot of times conditions there would approximate Class III, IV or maybe even V white water - You need to have the proper skills and boat to handle those conditions.

To anyone attempting the passage I'd advise exteme caution and suggest having alternatives planned if the conditions looked at all challenging. It's not the place to be and suddenly realize that the conditions are too much for your current skill level! If you are ever fortunate enough to get out successfully, I'd strongly recommend you have an alternate landing place planned in the likelyhood you are stymied from re-entering by the everchanging conditions. Keep in mind that max. speed thru the water for your Tsunami (and most of the other kayaks paddled by forum participants) is about 7 mph and that is only sustainable for any length of time by the strongest of paddlers. Even if you can handle the textured water, you're in an untenable position if the current and wind are too strong against you!
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Post by pat »

Craig,

Thanks for the good info. And let me make it clear that I'm <i>not</i> getting this information to prepare myself for a mouth voyage. I'd just like to be educated about a water area that is so close to where I live.

BTW... my top speed is only 6.3mph, and only sustainable for seconds.
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Post by Birdseye »

Hey Craig,
Are you sure you don't work for NOAA? :)
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Post by Todd »

Pat says
BTW... my top speed is only 6.3mph, and only sustainable for seconds.


And that is when 5 Wild Turkeys are behind him blowing.
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NOAA

Post by chpaton »

Nelson:

I'm not an oceanographer, but I used to play one on TV :D.

I lived in Woods Hole for 10 years before marriage and responsibility forced me to move north. I have a couple of friends from my former life who acutally qualify. However, most of my knowlege/experience comes from a youth spent messing around in boats (sailboats mostly) with my Dad.

Pat:

Sounds like you've measured your speed with a GPS. Keep in mind that's distance (over the bottom) divided by time - true boat speed is measured as distance over water divided by time, so if the water is moving you need to take that into consideration too! If the current is running at 4 mph against you and the GPS says you are moving at 1 mph, your boat speed is 5 mph.
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Post by Birdseye »

The following is an excerpt from the NOAA publication "Coastal Pilot" which consists of a series of nautical books that cover a variety of information important to navigators of coastal and intracoastal waters and the Great Lakes. More info for our area can be found at: http://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/nsd/coastpilot1.htm

Chart 13267

(29) New Inlet, on the north side of Fourth Cliff and 2 miles southward of Scituate Harbor, is the approach to North River and South River.

(30) The inlet had a reported depth of about 10 feet over the bar in June 1979. It is marked by a fairway bell buoy off the entrance and by several channel buoys, but the channel is subject to change and is never entered except by small craft with local knowledge. Strangers should not attempt to cross the bar on the ebb with an easterly wind or in heavy seas as waves break across the bar. The bar consists of boulders that are reported to be particularly numerous on the south side of the inlet. A strong current flows out of the inlet during the falling tide.

(31) In May 1993, a submerged rock was reported near the center of the channel about 20 yards southwest of Buoy 4.
Last edited by Birdseye on Wed Jul 13, 2005 2:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: NOAA

Post by pat »

chpaton wrote:Sounds like you've measured your speed with a GPS. Keep in mind that's distance (over the bottom) divided by time - true boat speed is measured as distance over water divided by time, so if the water is moving you need to take that into consideration too!


Yup. I measured it on a small pond.
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Post by Jim Fitzgerald »

Two stories-

I used to do a lot of diving with a buddy who kept his boat up the North River at King's Landing. At least once a week we would go out through the mouth and go diving usually off Third Cliff, so I have a lot of experience dealing witht hte conditions at the mouth. The most dangerous conditions (the current is always pretty to ridiculously strong) occur at the height of the ebb when there is a brisk wind out of the NE or E that pushes up a lot of short period waves (heavy chop type). The worst of all is when the waves combine with a longer ocean swell from something offshore. When that occurs this standing wall of water forms at the mouth just off 4th cliff that is, no surprisingly, referred to at least by my friends as the Wall. There were times when we didn't even both to leave the river because of the Wall, knowing that it is easy to leave through the Wall but very dangerous to try to get back in from the seaward side.

One day we were out diving in our usual place when a strong sea swell started quite quickly and unexpectedly. This kind of swell can be felt far underwater and we noticed it while we were diving and came to the surface to find a good 4-6' swell that didn't exist when we started the dive. We got on the boat and started back to the river with the swell still growing and the wind picking up of of the East(we found out later there was a nasty ocean storm a ways out to sea). By the time we got to the mouth we were spending half our time surfing on these big swells. Of course, it was the height of the ebb tide and the Wall was up in full force. Seeing what we were up against, knowing the right course of action was to bag going into the mouth and to head to Scituate Harbor and being strapping young men with no common sense we immediately headed for the mouth. I took all the gear and loose stuff that was on deck and put it in the cabin (the boat was a 23' Seaway that looks very much like a small lobster boat) so that we could retrieve it when the boat sank (I said we were strapping with no common sense, but we were realists). I dug out the life jackets that we never wore and put them on deck (not on us mind you, remember the common sense deficiency) and charge the river at full throttle. We figured if we timed things right we could surf the swell over the wall and clear the mouth without incident. Unfortunately, the swell died just in front of the Wall so we hit the Wall square on. We had the canvas bimini top up and the water broke clear over the boat with the foam hitting behind the motor and nothing through the window except green water. We thought we were going straight down but we popped up on the other side dripping water from every flat surface. We didn't say a word for about a minute, then my partner looked at me and said, "That was Interesting!" I wouldn't want to try my hand at that again.

Second story-

Last summer on late afternoon I took my boat down to Driftway to go out fishing in the river. High tide was about 7:00 and I figured I'd go out about 6:00 to catch the changing of the tide. I got out to the mouth and it was absolutely flat calm. Millpond, mirror-like reflection, smooth as glass calm. Figuring that this was an opportunity, I took a left instead of my usual right and went out to sea. I stopped when I got to the eastern most nav buoy, figuring that I didn't want to have to fight the outgoing tide coming back in, but I felt like I could have just kept going all the way to P-Town. It was beautiful and humbling being out on the "big water". I went back in with the only trouble being wakes from the zipperheads that spent the afternoon sunbathing on the Spit heading back to Scituate.

So the river can be very good or very bad. You just have to know you limitations and expect the worst, but be willing to take advantage if the mouth is playing nice.

Jim
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Inlets

Post by chpaton »

Pat:

When we do a Dorchester Bay trip we may have the opportunity to play a bit in a tidal inlet - sort of a mini-micro version of the North/South River inlet.

There is a tidal pond on the southwest end of Thompson's Island (it's not too clear on the aerial photo you posted). The inlet is about 50 yards long and if we hit it right we can experience in a small way some of the difficulties caused by the tidal currents and eddies at tidal river mouths.

I've played there twice. The first time the current was running out and the waves (1' to 2 ft) were comming in - I just about dumped at the point the two countering forces met. I think the only thing that saved me is the current flowing out was not so stong that I couldn't paddle in against it and I was able to get out of this area and into the pond with reasonable efficiency.

The second time the current was flowing in, so I surfed the small waves in, got caught in the current and propelled into the pond. Again the boat stability was adversely affected by the "eddy lines" between the wave force and the tidal current (these "lines" demark adjacent sections of water moving at different speeds/directions). Your boat can be tipped if you get the bow in one section of water while the stern is in another - the trick (so I'm told) is to be able to recognize these eddylines and execute a maneuver called a ferry to cross them. This time the current was too swift to paddle against and I had to exit the boat and drag it back out when it was time to go.
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Post by pat »

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I currently only have a half skirt, but I've ordered a full skirt. They estimate delivery at REI in Hingham on Jul 23. I'm hoping it might show up earlier. I'm assuming that I should have this before heading out to the harbor, right?

Nelson and I were talking about this trip and we're really looking forward to it. Are weekdays a possibility for you, Craig? I'd be willing to play hookey for a day to get out there. Probably less drunk powerboaters on a weekday, too.
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Skirts & Weekdays

Post by chpaton »

Pat:

Weekdays are difficult - my job requires a bit of notice to take a day off and considering the variables associated with kayaking I hesitate to get locked into a day off and then have the reason washed down the drain or blown out the window.

As far a full skirt goes, conventional wisdom says yes, but you're asking the wrong guy - at the moment I'm exclusively paddling discontinued self-bailing, open cockpit boats (SOTs) from Heritage (Bristol RI).
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Post by pat »

Craig,

I probably won't have my skirt for at least a week, and it sounds like you're tied up with family obligations, so perhaps we can try to set something up once we're in a better position.

Sorry Nelson, I know you want to get out there NOW! Me too.
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Post by Chip »

I'll jump in on this one if I can swing it. I like paddling to the islands.
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Post by Birdseye »

Sorry Nelson, I know you want to get out there NOW! Me too.


I'll try and be patient. How about your Clarks Island trip for practice??
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